


You wouldn't believe me if I told you

by luna65



Category: Mötley Crüe
Genre: 1980s, And why?, Angst and Humor, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Gen, Magic, Magical Realism, Metafiction, Multi, POV Third Person Omniscient, Period Typical Attitudes, Suicidal Ideation, Telepathy, Terror Twins, Unreliable Narrator, What is real?, Whose life is this anyway?, art imitates life and artifice imitates everything, both the book and the movie, meta af, references to The Dirt, the Author has many guises, the usual shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 05:17:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 28,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18793762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna65/pseuds/luna65
Summary: The Crüe are reliving their notorious history one more time via the movie adaptation ofThe Dirt.  In the midst of all the nostalgia Nikki and Tommy receive an unexpected reminder of the secret which binds them together forever, and one they never revealed even in the process of telling all for their salacious memoir.  But is it truly a secret if someone they can't trace or track down appears to know the most intimate details of their wild ride to fame and infamy?  What kind of game is this person playing, and why?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for a challenge at another archive entitled Stranger Than Fiction (after the movie of the same name). So we were basically asked to imagine what would happen if the characters we wrote about became aware they **are** characters and what would they do; what would we, as authors, do if they began insisting upon autonomy? But I didn't really follow the line of that logic exactly, this is my own metafictional exploration of someone discovering that he exists inside of a fiction. And thus some commentary about the nature of fanfic as well.
> 
> The minute I read the challenge prompt I immediately thought of the nature of memoir, unreliable narrators, memory...all that sort of meta-esque stuff about being the authors of our own stories and it was all so clear. Well, I hope so. I've always wanted to write Nikki/Tommy, at any rate.
> 
> I wanted to note that I am adhering more to the actual documented history of the band than the movie or even the book does, which tends to be the way I write in general. But it's all fictions within fictions within myths within a dream...right? *wink*

A frog in a well cannot conceive of the ocean.  
\- Zhuangzi

 

Unpublished excerpt from interviews for _The Dirt_ , conducted in August 2000.

Interview session 4-57 - Nikki   
_(transcription and editorial notes: Strauss)_

(Nikki is drunk, I think. Or something. I'm going to say drunk because I don't want to think about whatever else it might be. Fuck me, I'm losing my editorial perspective. But I'm also thinking: maybe I'll hear something unusual this time. There's a different standard of strange when it comes to these guys. He sits down and just starts talking and I don't bother with the set of questions I expected to ask today.)

Sixx: There are people you _fuck_ , and then there are people who _fuck you up_. I mean, bone deep. I don't mean sex, I mean emotions. It's like they stab you so deep, bite you so hard, and the wound never closes. They rearrange your mind, like drugs do, and your brain cannot come back to the way it was before you met them. That's Tommy, for me.

Strauss: So more than brothers? Brothers by choice, that is?

Sixx: Think of a word that rhymes, man.  
(He laughs for several minutes, with his eyes closed. I fear he might pass out but eventually he opens his eyes again and continues.)

Sixx: And it was gradual, but it was an effect, and I think what it was is that I never had somebody like that, somebody who just wanted to be right with me all the time no matter what. I knew people could tell there was something off about me back then, but some people didn't care. But it's like Tommy didn't see that - what he saw was a person he wanted to be with. _You and Me, here we go_ , like that. I'd play him my songs and he would be looking at me with those eyes, you know - okay, they're not the same now but back then, they were _so big_ and his feelings would just leak out and it's like I could taste them. Like, I'd get so mad at anything and he'd just look at me, like, _Don't you know it's all gonna be okay? We got this._ And finally I just, like, _fell_. I fuckin' fell into it and so did he and we became the Terror Twins. But kinda beyond that too.

Strauss: Like how?

Sixx: Awww shit, I can't -  
(He stopped for several minutes, unapologetically producing a flask and taking several pulls. I said nothing.)  
Sixx: (deep breath) No, no, I can't - well, okay, listen. Maybe you saw this already. We got interviewed at Donnington, you know, it was our first big show in England, it was a huge fuckin' deal but at the same time it was, like, we were just another band on the bill. But we were starting to finally get a foothold there in the UK. And we fuckin' killed it, people were throwing shit on the stage, it was crazy. So this guy's talking to us and we're being total punks, you know, but I know they're used to that shit and at some point I start banging Tommy's head on the table. Like, I just grabbed his hair and did it. To be funny, you know, but at the same time it felt, like, such a gesture of total possession. He was mine to do with as I would. My instrument - way more than my bass, way more than my songs. _And he let me do it._ He laughed like it was the funniest shit ever. He was just **there**. So, like, fast forward a year later and we're not twins anymore, we're one person in two bodies. Did T-Bone tell you `bout what happened with that first bitch he married?

Strauss: The one who stabbed him?

Sixx: Yeah. He drove himself to the emergency room, got all patched up and then the nurses are saying he should call the police. He drives to my place instead. And I said, `Dude, we will fix this,' and we did. He knew that I would always be there for him. And then he got into a fight with Princess on their wedding night -

Strauss: Heather?

Sixx: Yeah. And we're all in the same hotel, the whole wedding party and everybody, and I fuckin' hear it. It's, like, sunrise and I'm strung out from this whole fuckin' day and night and I had shot up a few times but I just couldn't deal with what was happening. You know, I was supposed to give a toast and all that shit, be nice to the families and the guests, all the people there, most of whom were not fucked-up like we were. And I couldn't handle it, I was in a constant state of panic. Anyway, so I'm down the hall and they're yelling at each other in the Honeymoon Suite and I'm all, `Oh fuck what I have done to him?!' I thought it was my fault, maybe, they might be arguing about me because Tommy would defend me, no matter what. Even if he thought I'd fucked up, which I was sure he did. He has a light inside of him that I've never had, I can't ever know what it feels like, but I needed him as badly as I ever needed any drug. I've never told anybody that. Oh Jesus fuck!

(Nikki puts his head between his knees and starts breathing heavily. I'm afraid he's having a panic attack. I start to say something but he's...crying? What do I do?)

Sixx: We used to have a code. I'd pull his hair - `Two for no,' I'd say, and it was that thing, man, he was _mine_. He was mine.

Strauss: Code for what?

(Nikki gets up and leaves the room. I figure he needs a minute if he's getting emotional, but he doesn't come back. I'm not going to mention it but I have a feeling this will never make the book, whatever it is he's trying to tell me. Not _me_ , I don't think. Probably Tommy.)


	2. Do you remember?  Well I remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a scene in either _Mötley Crüe Uncensored_ or _Decade of Decadence_ where Nikki is standing on a bluff somewhere above the Los Angeles Basin, and that is what primarily inspired the story-within-the-story.

Courtney was filming out of town so Nikki didn't have to worry about putting his phone on mute at night. He never liked thinking that someone who needed him would be unable to reach him - a holdover from the days of sponsorship, that feeling of contact being the only thing which separates a day of staying sober from a day in which you might not make it at all.

And now his phone was banging and clanking with a ringtone he'd had for years, one of Tommy's percussion "experiments" as Werman liked to refer to them, where they mixed different types of shakers, vibraphones, bells and congas to produce various accents and patterns just for the hell of it. T-Bone _loved_ that shit. Nikki blearily eyed the screen, it was 3:36. There had to be some significance to _that_ , for sure. 

"What the fuck," Nikki said into the phone, his voice raspy and heavy with sleep.

"Sixx, you gotta come over here," Tommy replied, equally rough-sounding. But entirely sober and perhaps...scared?

"What's wrong?" Nikki asked, sitting up in bed. Leica and Houdini shifted on the other side, each thumping their tails on the mattress.

"I can't talk about it, you know people might be monitoring our frequencies on these cell phones or what-the-fuck-ever."

"Okay, Art Bell, jesus! But I am not going to drag my ass out to the `Basas in the middle of the goddamn night for some vague-as-Hell request. Why is this an emergency?"

Nikki heard Tommy take a deep breath, swallowing, and in that sound were other nuances he knew well from his own list of reasons why anyone would be up at this time of night: panic, loathing, fear, loneliness, and the deepest crushing alienation.

"So I got this email that I sent to myself, somehow? And it's about you and me. But I don't remember doing it and I'm freaked the fuck out and that's all I'm gonna say. But okay, wait, let me say this: you told me 38 years ago that when we needed each other then it was no matter what. We just needed to _be there_. Do you remember that?"

Nikki sighed. "Of course I do."

"This is one of those times. I know it's been a long time, but _please_."

There were layers of emotion rendered within that one word, not the least of which was the co-dependent love which kept them in an ever-evolving orbit. So many years spent trying to figure it out, fix it, change it into something less destructive, but they could never quite take the sting out of it. At its' worst they could have easily enacted a mutual suicide pact of excess. At its' best...well, that was the reason Nikki was getting out of bed and sliding on black jeans, pulling on a t-shirt and then a long-sleeved thermal top, looking for his boots, grabbing keys and phone and wallet, gesturing to the dogs.

"C'mon boys, let's go see Uncle Tommy, okay?"

 

 

The 101 was miraculously near-deserted and false dawn was seeping into the sky, just a hint of brightness on the horizon. Only Nikki and a few semis rolling upon that famed road, swathed in darkness which was not entire - he could see lights strung through the foothills. The dogs crowded the passenger side windows of his truck and Nikki nodded his head to music he hadn't listened to in years, but hearing it now reminded him of that first year. _Year One_ , he thought with a wry grin. _Wherein Our Antihero meets His Fellow Misfits and thus begins Their Perilous Quest for False Idolatry_.

It wasn't a far journey, just long enough for a memory of the two of them driving the length of Hollywood Boulevard in both directions, plastering every available space with their flyers and staying one step ahead of the police, serenaded by this sugary-sweet music with a metallic core - full of barely-repressed lust dressed up in allusions of romance...the veritable hard-bitten predator in rags of velvet and lace.

Tommy never complained that Nikki only ever had one cassette to listen to when they were tired of the radio.

_I don't know myself_  
_if it's wrong or right_  
_all I know is what I can feel_  
_so be my love tonight._

 

By the time he had driven into the gated community and around the twisting lanes to Tommy's house, Nikki found himself genuinely curious in addition to his worry. Tommy's own sanity had been just as hard-won but was also that much more fragile. His emotions were closer to the surface. And there he was: sitting out on the wide staircase leading to the front door, smoking, hunched in on himself against the cold. Nikki let the dogs out of the truck and they swarmed their favorite uncle.

"Hey my dudes, what is up?!" No one said that phrase quite like Tommy did, whether to a crowd of thousands, or two golden retrievers who were eagerly investigating him for new and interesting smells.

"So do we get to come in or what?"

Tommy shook his head. "Let's go to the studio."

"You better have some coffee, fucker, I was so desperate I almost stopped at a 7-11."

"Bogus, man! I know you have more sense than that!"

"You'd think, sure, but sometimes I wonder. As in: right about now."

Tommy snickered and keyed the code for the side entrance door of The Atrium. Once inside he flipped on a panel of switches and they made their way downstairs to the lounge. Without a word he immediately moved to the kitchenette to get a pot of coffee going. Tommy was wearing a pair of baggy black sweats, topped with a thermal-and-t-shirt combo similar to Nikki's. His feet were bare and his equally jet-black hair was threaded with gray and in its' usual state of insouciant disarray. Nobody looked particularly good at this time of night but Nikki thought, even by the warm recessed lighting of the studio, that Tommy was looking more haggard than usual.

After a few minutes Tommy handed Nikki a large black mug embossed with the logo of the studio, the koi entwined at the top of the design his own take on the _taijitu_ symbol. Nikki breathed in the steam with a grateful smile.

"Alive!" he exclaimed like Victor Frankenstein. "Okay Jimi Deed, what is the fucking deal with you already."

"Dude! You know I fuckin' hate it when you call me that."

"And I'm too fuckin' old to be driving around at four in the morning."

Tommy sat down next to Nikki on the couch. The dogs had settled in nearby, lying on the floor and resuming their interrupted slumber. He sipped his coffee and stared at the table for a few moments, fiddling with a gardenia floating in a black lacquer bowl of water which, if not for the flower, would have been invisible against the surface of the table.

"Let me tell this, okay? Don't interrupt me."

"Okay."

Tommy took a deep breath, running a hand through his hair.

"Today I got an email from the old server - you know, the one we used to email each other, remember?"

Nikki nodded.

"And I'm thinking: _what the fuck is this?_ I haven't used that email in years. But then I start to wonder, there's a lot of things I do that I might forget about. Brit found an open jar of mustard in the cabinet where we keep the dishes the other day and I mean, I **had** to have to put it there. But can I remember when or why? Nope! So then I think, well maybe someone is spoofing me or whatever they call it. So I run a scan and everything checks out. I open the email and there's just a link to a Dropbox file. I can't tell if it's my account though. But I have done that before - recorded something and uploaded to my Dropbox and then sent myself the link for when I want to listen to it again. So that's what I figured I'd done."

"Okay and..."

Tommy gulped more coffee. "So I figure, fuck it, and click on the link. It shows, like, a pdf file, I guess. Text. And again, I'm, like, what the fuck? But I downloaded it and printed it out. I read better on paper than on a screen. And it's a story, I guess. But the only person who could have written it was either one of us, and I know we didn't do it."

"A story? About what?"

Tommy went into the control room and returned with a printout. "Read it."

Nikki glanced at what appeared to be the title at the top of the first page. "Huh; that describes a lot of things."

"It's about us. You and me. The you and me that we both promised we'd never talk about to anybody. And so I'm freaking the fuck out and deleting the email and erasing my browsing history and praying that Brit doesn't find it because she's really crafty like that. Because if she figures out that I didn't tell her this she will lose her shit. And I am going to burn that fuckin' thing after you've read it."

"The Dropbox - was it yours?"

"No, it was a shared link. I mean, I wrote it out before I erased everything just in case, but it looked like the kind of thing only I would be able to see."

"Why would she be mad about something that happened years ago?"

"Just because I didn't tell her. She considers that just as bad as lying."

"Then you just tell her I asked you not to."

"She's got severe trust issues, though. But just read it, okay? And you will come to the same conclusion that I did."

"Which is?"

"Who the fuck could have written this?!"

 

A match made somewhere South of Hell

When they finally said "yes" and sold their souls good and proper, then champagne - normally a drink Nikki couldn't stand - was somehow fitting. And so they had made their way through several bottles right after the signing. Zutaut had taken them to dinner - though Mars declined once more, saying he didn't give a fuck about celebrating and to call him when the advance check cleared - and then onto some party in the Hills filled with beautiful people who stared at them like they were caged big cats. Nikki had that feeling again of enjoying the effect he was having on various women, a melding of curiosity and fear. One woman who was definitely old enough to know better had pulled him aside, breathlessly telling him she had always been turned on by guys in bands. He fucked her quick in a fancy spotless bathroom and then while she was busy putting herself back together again he riffled through her purse and helped himself to her car keys once he spotted the Porsche key fob.

"Be a darling and hand me my lipstick," she said, standing before the mirror. So caught up in herself he could have robbed her blind and she wouldn't have noticed.

"Sure babe," he replied, handing her a golden tube. "Got any blow?"

"Me? No. Our host might, though, he's got a connection, they say."

"Who says?"

"Oh you know, people talk."

"Yeah sure. See ya `round."

"Are you leaving?"

"I'll be back, maybe."

Nikki plowed through the crowd in search of Tommy and spotted him wandering down a hallway, opening each door as he passed it and looking inside.

"T-Bone!" he yelled.

Tommy turned around and grinned wide. "Sixx! Where ya been, man?"

"C'mon, I need you to help me find something."

Tommy followed him downstairs and then out the front entrance, which was also clogged with bodies.

"Are these all movie people or somethin?'" Tommy wondered.

"Who fuckin' cares - look." Nikki dangled the keys in Tommy's face.

"Wow, whose car is that?" 

"Some chick's - problem is I don't know which of these it is."

"She didn't tell you?"

"She doesn't know I have her keys."

"So we might be, like, busted for stealing a car at some point?"

Nikki grinned, his hazel eyes practically sparkling with mischief. "It's a possibility."

Tommy returned the expression. "Rad!" he said.

 

For two young men who embraced foolish risk like it was their birthright they were strangely cautious once the opportunity was granted. After deciding it was possibly a bad idea to see - for example - how many blocks they could clear doing 90 on Sunset at this time of night, Nikki had let the car loose on the ribbon of Mulholland Drive in the nearby vicinity, eventually pulling off into a turnout where the Los Angeles Basin lay before them like all the jewels in Liz Taylor's vault. Or like the dreams Nikki _used_ to have, glittering and distant.

Tommy swung his legs out and put his head between his knees. "Whoa, some o'them turns got me feelin' woozy all of a sudden."

"You fuckin' lightweight," Nikki chided, stumbling out from the driver's side and taking in the sight. It was beautiful in a tawdry sort of way, just the type of beauty he preferred.

"Fuck you!"

"Oh, fuck me? Fuck me?!"

Tommy looked up, grinning. "Yeah, fuck you!"

Nikki looked down at him, smirking. "Try to fuck _me_ , your dick would probably break off."

Tommy stood up, meeting those hazel eyes dead on. "Ain't nothin' can break off _my_ dick, big man."

"Yeah yeah, T-Boner Anaconda, shut the fuck up."

"You brought it up!"

Nikki could always get away with saying all kinds of ambiguous shit, either because people were used to him being weird or he might start swinging if questioned. He had two speeds: inert and chaos. But Tommy never acted anything less than fascinated with whatever Nikki had to say or do. He gripped the other's shoulder and turned him towards the view.

"Check it out; all those people out there, they're gonna know who we are."

Tommy whistled. "I've never seen it like this."

"No?"

"I went to the observatory on a class trip this one time, but that was in daylight."

"Well get used to it, kid. All those assholes starin' at us back there? We're gonna be up here with them too."

"And then **they** can try to crash our fuckin' parties!"

Nikki laughed and laced his fingers through Tommy's hair, making his head wag. "You got that fuckin' right!"

The cold of the early morning sobered them as they stood there, staring at the city. Nikki wasn't surprised when Tommy took his hand.

"I want you to remember something," he said to Tommy. " **We** did this. They come in here with their money and their bullshit suits and say they're gonna make us stars, but they'll never do anything better, or work harder, than we will. They _can't_."

"Fuckers can't stop us neither - today: L.A., tomorrow: the world!" Tommy struck a victory pose, arms high and wide.

"You've always understood me, T - why is that?"

Tommy shrugged. "I dunno, why wouldn't I? You're a cool guy, and you're smart, you know what you want. And you ain't afraid of _shit_ \- what's not to get?"

Nikki pulled Tommy closer, the distant lights not quite bright enough to illuminate the intensity of his gaze, but there was an instinctual heat in their proximity.

"It's you and me, don't forget that either. When I need you, you need to _be there_. No matter what. Okay?"

"Okay."

"No fucker, say it like you fuckin' mean it. _Swear_ to me."

Tommy took a step back, a low chuckle escaping. "You gonna swear too, Sixx?"

"I do. I'm always gonna be right there."

"Do you _swear_?"

Nikki pushed at him, and Tommy fell against the car. "Fuck you!"

Tommy stood up again and grabbed Nikki by the shoulders. "Hey! You started it, asshole. I swear I will be there for you. But I'm gonna expect the same from you."

"You want me to swear it? Fine. How `bout I jump off this fuckin' mountain for you. Just for you, T-Bone." 

Nikki pretended to make a run for the edge and Tommy grabbed him.

"Goddamn it you crazy motherfucker, stop! Okay, fine, I -"

And then it happened. Looking back, it wasn't anything the two couldn't have predicted. Crazy shit like grabbing your bandmate/best friend and kissing him deeply, in a thoroughly penetrating fashion, was just another fuckin' day's worth of insanity.

If it had been any other guy, Tommy would have decked him _immediately_. But this was Nikki, his blood, and he loved him. Whatever that meant. In every single way.

The kiss lasted far longer than either of them had thought it might. They came up for air but couldn't bear to come apart. Fingers threaded through thick hair still sticky with the day's coating of Aqua-Net and mousse, black liner smudged around now-bloodshot eyes shining with a new source of fiery need, they panted hard and laughed breathily. They rubbed their lips across skin and they bit each other - not hard enough to bleed, but to leave marks, feel the sense of possession in each other.

"Mine," Nikki whispered, hoarse and maybe angry too. Dude was always angry about something.

Tommy moaned in his throat and then it was his turn to kiss deeper than all desire.

Maybe he had been waiting just for this, Tommy thought, as they dared to perform the one truly dangerous act in their reckoning. Maybe he hadn't been waiting for a band to bond with, but rather the one person who would claim him as someone who had what they needed. To belong to a shared destiny.

When the delirium finally subsided they didn't part with a sense of confusion or shame but rather an understanding. _This is just how it is now._

Their world had changed and everything would be different, but they would conquer it _together_.

They sat leaning up against each other on the ground, watching the sky grow lighter by increments, the lights below winking out. Tommy smoked and Nikki stared intently into the middle distance.

"Are we gonna give her car back?" Tommy asked eventually.

"Fuck it, let's hit up Ben Frank's - we'll leave it there."

"So, what, we're gonna walk home?"

"Dude, do we ever have to walk home from _anywhere_ we don't want to?"

Tommy grinned. "Oh fuck no!"

Nikki tugged at Tommy's hair. "That's what I'm sayin' kid. Damn, I think I actually have to work today!"

"Yeah really? I called my boss and told `im I wasn't ever comin' back, I have painted my last fuckin' house for sure!"

"Yeah maybe I'll go in there just to say `See ya!' but I don't wanna piss `em off. C'mon T-Bone, let's slink back down to the gutter."

Tommy laughed. "It may be the gutter, but it's Home!"

They got in the car and Nikki looked at Tommy, once again intensely serious.

"You're all I've got, you know."

He could see Tommy's eyes now and they were wide and warm and the first time he had looked into them he felt something inside him break apart and he had wanted to laugh with surprise and pleasure at the feeling of lightness it gave him. Tommy placed his hand on top of Nikki's, resting on the gearshift, and squeezed.

"I'm yours," he whispered.

 

 

Nikki looked up from the manuscript with an expression which was varying shades of nostalgia, sorrow, disbelief and longing.

"What in the goddamn shitting seven hells was that?!"

Tommy covered his face with his hands. "I know," he said, though it came out more like a croak.

"How -"

"I don't know, dude, but it was like they were fuckin' there. Right there, invisible, watching us. Because that is _exactly_ what happened that night. To the fuckin' T."

"How did you even know I fucked that lady?"

"You told me, remember? Like, the next day - you let me come in your room `cause Vince was bangin' some chick in ours and I was, like, `Wow' because you never let anybody in your room before. And we -"

Nikki threw the pile of paper at the far wall. "Fuck fuck fuck!"

The dogs were startled awake and came over to him, whimpering. Nikki apologized to them with hugs and soft-spoken assurances.

"Dude, I mean, I just don't know how it's even _possible_ , is what I'm saying," Tommy said.

"Well I know it wasn't you because you can't write anything without sounding exactly like yourself."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment."

Nikki pulled at his hair. "Did you. **Ever.** Tell _anybody_. About this?"

Tommy rose to his feet, attempting to quell his anger. He moved over to the kitchenette and poured another cup of coffee. "Of course not! I have carried this around for going on 40 years now, just like I promised I would. And sometimes I feel like it's poisoning me, but hell, poisoning ourselves is nothin' fuckin' new, is it? What about you, Sixx?"

"Fuck no!"

_(oh wait, but what about)_

"Then what the fuck is goin' on, man? I mean, I feel like I'm in some kinda weird movie or some shit."

"There's someone out there who wants to fuck with our heads."

"Okay sure, no shortage of weirdos and maniacs to make our lives interesting, I totally agree with you on that. But someone who knows something about us we've never told anyone else? Not only knows, but knows the exact details of the night we first, y'know -"

"It is possible to write something _true_ without trying to write something _real_."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"I learned that in a writing seminar, years ago. What I mean is that someone could have imagined it without realizing that it actually **did** happen."

"Okay but this doesn't read like someone's imagination, dude. It's like they were there. I mean, who the fuck knows, somebody could have been there. We were wasted, and horny, and just generally oblivious to everything but each other. I mean, if we hadn't, like, put the brakes on it, I think I would have thrown down with you right there in the dirt, man."

Nikki stared at Tommy, his expression slightly stunned.

"Jesus fuck, stop trying to read my fucking mind! We agreed that the Terror Twins had to die, remember?"

Tommy huffed, but then looked away. "Goddamn it, I don't need this shit right now, Sixx."

"Like I do?! Lately I've been able to just leave you in a nice safe place in my mind and not see you when I'm trying to make love to my wife...do you know how many years _that_ shit kept happening?"

"About the same amount of time I kept seeing you, probably."

"What the fuck is happening right now?!" Nikki exclaimed, looking up at the ceiling.

Tommy sighed, his face slack and weary. "Dude, I wish I fuckin' knew. It feels like someone doesn't want us to forget."

"Forget?! I haven't forgotten anything, I just want to live my fuckin' life without us being all obsessed with each other. We both know we can't do that."

"I know it doesn't work, but...well...I won't lie. I have some nights where it's all I think about."

"Well you need to stop that shit - maybe you're the one who caused this!"

"What, I suddenly have amazing psychic powers or something? C'mon dude!"

"Hey, it's no more crazy than you sending yourself a story about the first time we were intimate. That you didn't write."

Tommy looked at his watch. "Shit, the wife is gonna be up soon. Stay for breakfast, okay? It will look less suspicious if you do."

Nikki rose, took the coffee cup out of Tommy's hand and pulled him to his feet.

"You know what would be really crazy right now?" Nikki moved in till they were nose-to-nose, pushing Tommy up against the nearest wall.

"Dude, what are you doing?"

Nikki froze, looking around as if he'd been unconscious of his actions. "Why did I say that? I didn't mean to say that!"

Tommy stared at him, wide-eyed. "What did you mean to do?"

"I was just gonna say sure, why not?"

"And what were you going to do? Just now."

"I don't -"

Tommy leaned in close, whispering. "Does it mean we're both going crazy if I want to do it too?"


	3. He'll be the risk in the kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter draws from various apocryphal stories of the time (as well as actual events), of course, but if they were all coincidences, well...I'm just sayin.'

Ensconced in his tastefully-decorated expansive office with a lovely view of the landscaping in the backyard which was illuminated by another sunshine-y Spring day, getting ready for another round of publicity obligations, Nikki recalled how the mainstream rock press once feared Mötley in their prime, as if they expected the band members to physically attack them, rabid and unruly. Or that they might pick up something unsavory just from talking to them. He grinned.

"Noooo," he whispered to himself, "you only got bit if we _liked_ you!"

He sipped coffee from a large black mug which read _I'm only **less** of an asshole once I've had my coffee_, a Christmas gift from Frankie-Jean (because Nikki had stated he wanted a mug which read _Caffeinated Asshole_ , but his daughter thought this one was funnier), and also a superfruits-and-protein smoothie. Nikki was more than willing to be healthy now, but he drew the line at putting kale in every goddamn thing as was the current trend. Tommy, on the other hand, couldn't get enough of the stuff.

"Kale, man, it just cleans you out so good!" he often enthused during their weekly phone conversations. "Gets rid of all that toxic buildup."

"Suck my fucking dick, you kale-munching son of a bitch."

And Tommy would laugh, as always...it almost hurt, how easily they had connected once more. That cellular connection of darkness and light, shot through with soul-deep love.

Nikki examined the press calls schedule which his publicist had emailed him; noting that more than half of the outlets were film-related rather than music or media in general, which got him wondering about what kinds of questions he might be asked. He imagined he would be discussing his infamous predilection for excess all day long, which sometimes left him feeling he was talking about some other guy behind his back.

_Or over his dead body._

He couldn't remember who told him not to run from his past, but exploit it for all it was worth, and he was still amazed that he was in a position to do so.

And then there was that _other_ thing...but he still didn't know what to think about that. And he didn't want to think about Tommy at all. Work was needed today, at least a few hours of distraction. He picked up his phone to check his email as he had a few minutes before the first call on the schedule. Scrolling through, there was the usual amount of signal-to-noise ratio in terms of work-related missives and personal pleas for his time and attention, as well as congratulatory emails regarding the movie from people who hadn't contacted him in years.

His thumb froze when he saw the email address on the screen: SIXX@generationswine.com. His brain locked as if it had been switched off and he blinked, uncomprehending for scant seconds. Then he imagined Tommy's reaction to see an email from TBONE in his inbox. Goose walking on your grave, all that bullshit. The past rising like Carrie's hand out of the scorched earth of her final showdown: undead, hungry for revenge or at least full acknowledgment of all those bad decisions. Nikki knew what it was like to be haunted by bad shit, but even as his brain tortured him for years with the sludge of self-loathing and trauma, this, _this_ in digital actuality was a total mindfuck for goddamn motherfucking certain.

"What the actual fuck," he said aloud, then hoped no one but the dogs heard him speak. He realized he would have to apologize to Tommy - not something he was always _willing_ to do, even now - but there was no fucking way he was even looking at that email right now. He centered himself, took a few deep breaths, and picked up the office phone, ready to attend to the business of being Nikki Sixx, a man with a vision the world came to know as Mötley Crüe.

 

Interviewer: One of the more interesting aspects of the movie for me was the way it portrays your friendship with Tommy Lee, like he was the little brother who looked up to you.  
Nikki: They were all my brothers, but, like, in a gang. That's how we looked at it. Tommy was just totally onboard from day one with what I wanted to do, and it's so important to have even just one person say, `Yeah, I'm in.' But he's one of those people, like, you know you're never gonna know anybody else like this in your whole life. And you want that, you know? You want that personality to give you some perspective, some balance. But in the early days, any crazy idea I had, there he was trying to make it happen. Which was good, but it was also dangerous.  
Interviewer: So you've been the same kind of best friends over the years?  
Nikki: It's evolved, you know, but yeah, I **do** consider him my best friend still. Listen, I spent my 40th birthday _in jail_ with Tommy. I think it was my 40th, or one of those around there, and if that's not best friends, y'know, then I don't know what is.  
Interviewer: And why you were in jail?  
Nikki: The same reason we were _always_ in trouble with the police, which was fighting. We would all get into fights with people giving us shit, security being dicks, I came really close to getting collared for throwing down with the cops - I wrote a song about that one.  
Interviewer: Yes you all have criminal records, don't you?  
Nikki: (laughs) That's how you did it back then, you see, gold and platinum albums and a rap sheet to match. No one couldn't say we weren't badass!  
Interviewer: Or psychotic, maybe?  
Nikki: (laughs) Yeah there wasn't much difference.

 

They had a lot of boltholes across the general vicinity - when you're an addict you tend to want various hidey holes to retreat to - and Nikki decided they needed to use one of those instead of either of their houses to talk about what was happening; no more defiling the sacred ground of normality in their latter-day lives.

So that's how Nikki and Tommy found themselves above a fairly prosaic strip club in Tarzana, sitting on the floor of a suite which looked like it could be an office of some kind, but they had used it for some of their assignations and binges in years prior. The music pulsed through the floor, rattling them as they leaned against the outer wall and each other.

"This carpet looks cleaner than the last time I saw it," Tommy cracked.

"Yeah I get it done twice a year, whether it needs it or not."

"Why did you keep this place?" 

"Because, dude, you just never know."

They fell silent for a few minutes, looking over the riot of images on their skins, and recalling how they had been together for the inscribing of most of them.

"I got that itch in my brain again," Tommy whispered.

"Yeah, me too. Are you ready to read it?"

"No, but give it to me anyway."

Nikki handed Tommy a printout. "I kept thinking if something like this had been in the movie, like, the actual real thing, I wonder what people would have thought. I mean, there was no fuckin' way even if we had been okay with it, but it seems like I always kinda forget how deep the shit was."

Tommy donned his reading glasses, took a deep breath, and stared at the first page.

"I gotta say, though, these titles - they're fuckin' hilarious."

"Funny like a car crash," Nikki murmured.

 

 

 

Sixxy & Sleazy: miscreants at large

When you were a shit-hot record producer in Los Angeles, the industry afforded you any number of temptations. And if you were friends with one of the most successful record producers in Los Angeles, it meant **you** got to enjoy those temptations too. And Roy Thomas Baker was off the motherfuckin' chain, ready to lay waste to lots of nubile young girls and mountains of blow, as he'd left his wife behind in London. He was renting a house on Doheny Drive and the band had an open invitation to hang out, get wasted, get fucked, and generally have a bitchin' time.

And so they did.

That could be, would be, the end of the story as one could imagine the bacchanalia which occurred on a weekly basis but causality is a goddamn motherfuckin' bitch who liked to meddle in Nikki's exploits just as surely as his mother had tried to do before he put a stop to _that_ bullshit by carving up his arm - a feral boy extricating himself from a trap.

Too much blow made his brain work too hard, mostly. The thoughts came fast and furious and made him feel assaulted by their insistence, whatever the notion.

The mission upon arriving was always to get Candice fucked up first, because then she'd be too wasted to care that Tommy was trying to match him fuck-for-fuck with the girls in the Jacuzzi. The problem, Nikki knew, was that Candice was their equal in excess and incredibly difficult to bring down. He had given her two Valium - the five milligram variety - since their arrival, but with all the blow they'd snorted off the top of RTB's fancy glass-topped grand piano it was more-or-less smoothing her out, and she was balanced perfectly on the edge between invincibility and total bliss so he had dropped another one of those chill pills into her margarita, hoping that at any moment she would just fucking pass out and shut up already.

And sure enough, in another half-hour she began to slump and blink, and cuddle up against Tommy and he had carried her out of that stew pot of communal bodily fluids to wrap her up in a bathrobe and deposit her in a bedroom upstairs. What a goddamn gentleman. When he walked out again, tiptoeing to ensure she stayed quiet, Tommy nearly yelped to find himself waylaid by his Terror Twin just outside the door. They were both naked...but so was everyone else, so fuck it.

"Gotcha!" Nikki exclaimed in a whisper, as if they were playing Hide-and-Seek. He was grinning and in seconds his hands were _everywhere_.

"Oh fuck," Tommy moaned. "Dude, let's -" but he surrendered to that force of nature because that was all he knew how to do. He slid down to suck Nikki, and Nikki dragged them down the hall and into a bathroom and gloated with pleasure and pride at just how good his boy knew how to get him off.

**_Mine._ **

And woe betide _anyone_ who thought of coming between them.

 

"Do you like his cock better than mine?" Tommy asked the girl he was fucking. 

"You're so - ohmygod I've never had a dude so -"

"T-Bone, don't make them _choose_."

"I'm _not_ , I'm just really curious."

The girls they were fucking climaxed at the same time and the Terror Twins shared a high-five at this development.

"I gotta, wait, get the fuck off me."

That was Nikki: one minute he was pounding pussy like he thought he could crack it open and then he was dumping that ass on the side of the road, or wherever, keeping it moving, onto the next debauch.

These girls had been told they needed to behave, not talk back, not cause a fuss, if they wanted to play with the bad boys inside. So the chicks climbed off and went in search of something else, probably guys who wanted to cuddle or some shit. But Tommy liked to cuddle too. He threw a leg over Nikki's thigh and the steam and bubbles hid his reaction but the feel of their skins sliding was torturous to Nikki. He grabbed Tommy's hair and pulled the other to him, sinking his teeth into Tommy's shoulder, just above his Mighty Mouse tattoo.

"Ahh -" Tommy hissed, but held still. He was a good boy. He didn't even try to protest that people might wonder what they were doing. The entire goddamn mansion was on lockdown because the inhabitants had reached the point of complete chemical compromise. FUBAR, as Tommy's dad was wont to say, meaning _fucked-up beyond all recognition_. And thus fucked-up, nothing was unusual. He wondered when Nikki was finally going to grope him in front of other people, because it was easy for him to reach that point of not giving a fuck about what he did or what other people might think about it. Coke made him crazy, to a point.

But Tommy loved it too much to protest, to question...and why would he? They were getting paid to be crazy and if that wasn't the motherfucking dream come true then he didn't know what was.

And Nikki was his world. Nikki had created all of this out of nothing, for them to step into and assume their rightful place.

Teethmarks, in his shoulder, on the back of his neck, he felt them, he wore them with pride and arousal and a crushing love he couldn't exactly articulate.

 

"Man, I really fucked it up with her," Nikki muttered.

Tommy took a pull on his beer and turned wide stoned sympathetic eyes to his best friend.

"Dude, you don't wanna tie yourself down; you're not like me."

"Yeah but she's the coolest chick I know. She's too good for me to treat like I treat everybody else. I gotta...talk to her, I don't know. I shouldn't be here."

"Dude, chill! Look, you can go home to Lita tomorrow and, like, talk about it or whatever. We can't leave anyway - RTB locked all the doors `n shit."

"Where are my clothes? Help me find my clothes."

"Sixx, dude, c'mon! Relax."

Nikki stood up, and Tommy marveled again at how his body was so pale and thin and yet there was a wiry determination within the set of those muscles. Nikki in the flesh made him weak, always.

"Help me. Find. **My clothes**."

"Okay okay!"

But wherever their clothes might have been left once they entered the party, it was nowhere they were able to locate. Maybe their host had put them in safekeeping, like when you went to jail. Ah, if only jail could be this fuckin' rad, right?

As they stumbled around various rooms, Tommy's attributes were catching the eye of other girls, who brazenly approached and offered themselves, declaring they wanted a ride on that monster. And damn but he _loved_ the attention - all day, all night, 24/7/365, yeah buddy. He wanted to fuck the entire world and feel that big love. And thus distracted his twin was able to slip the leash and do something totally fucking insane, like climb a wall and escape, naked and higher than the goddamn moon, into the night.

 

 

Tommy couldn't remember finding his way back to where he had stashed Candice, but of course he must have, as he was now being awakened with her by his side, his body aching from having fucked so many girls so very hard. He stretched, heard bones cracking, felt muscles protest, and made a breathy sigh. Their host was looking down at him with bemusement.

"Tommy, darling, Nikki just phoned me. He says for you to come over to Lita's right now. It sounds like there's been some trouble?"

"Yeah that sounds like Sixx alright. Thanks, dude," Tommy whispered. "Hey, can I leave Candice here for now? I'll come back for her, I promise."

"I can ring for a cab, no worries."

"Dude, where did we leave our clothes anyway?"

Roy gestured at a nearby chair. "I take it that may be part of the aforementioned trouble - Nikki absconding sans garments as he did."

"You mean he left last night? How?!"

"Climbed Ye Olde Garden Wall, he did. He's nothing if not determined, our Nikki."

"Oh fuck!" Tommy quickly pulled on his clothes, fished out his keys, and grabbed up Nikki's clothes. "Thanks again, man, later!"

Sunlight was a painfully bright assault even with the aid of sunglasses, but Tommy managed to pilot his Corvette without incident back to Lita's place in the Valley. He was then shocked to find Nikki in hospital scrubs and a sling, but dude looked like he was feelin' no pain.

"Dude, what happened?!" was all he could say.

Nikki looked over at Lita, who met his gaze with an equally hard-eyed one, but after a few seconds she left the room.

"You wanna beer?" Nikki asked, his voice a heavy slur. "Get me one too."

Tommy dutifully fetched refreshments and plopped down next to his bandmate.

"That sling looks gnarly, dude."

"Separated my shoulder. Wrapped the Porsche around a telephone pole."

"Whoa!"

"You know we're cursed, right? All kinda weird shit happening."

"I thought it was just that one time!"

"You can't summon something and then just expect it to leave you alone."

"So...what, do we call an exorcist?"

"I'm gonna figure out how to banish it. But I may need your help."

Tommy sat back, dread negating whatever leftover buzz he might have had from the previous night.

"Uh, yeah, sure. Dude, does it hurt?"

"They gave me some pills - man, I am fuckin' floating right now, this is some good shit."

"Can I have one?"

Nikki gestured to a prescription bottle on the table. " _One_ , but don't take it now, wait till you're at home. It's gonna fuck you up, and it happens pretty fast."

Tommy shook out one of the round white pills. "Doesn't look like much."

Nikki chuckled, then winced. "Looks _can_ be deceiving."

"So I guess you're outta commission for the rest of the sessions?"

Nikki gave him a half-shrug. "Maybe, maybe not. Don't tell anybody yet, I'll call Doc. Listen, I had this weird fuckin' vision when they jammed my shoulder back into place and I passed out for, like, five minutes. I dreamed I watched you die - these things, they crawled out of the sewers and they _ate you_ , right in front of my eyes."

"Heinous!"

"Fuckin' A. I was totally freaked out. When I came to I was screaming, I guess, and it took me a minute to realize it was a dream. But it's the curse, I feel like it is. Look, you know I love you, right?"

"Yeah dude, I love you too," Tommy responded immediately.

"No man, I don't mean, like, we're brothers or some shit, I mean -" at this his voice dropped to a whisper, "- _I love you_. Like, I would be fucked-up if something happened to you. I thought you should know that, just in case."

"Just in case what?"

Nikki half-shrugged again. "There's evil out there, man. Who the fuck knows."

Tommy leaned in close. "I love you too. I don't want us to die or anything, but if we do, well, then yeah, you should know that too."

Nikki smiled, then, just managing to raise his beer bottle up. Tommy tapped it and they drank. Tommy had to help Nikki bring the bottle to his mouth.

"I'm -" Nikki began, then fell limp, his eyes fluttering.

Tommy swiftly grabbed the bottle, setting it back on the table. He gently moved his best friend into a semi-slumped position on the couch.

"I gotcha, Sixx." He looked over his shoulder before placing a gentle kiss on Nikki's forehead.

 

 

Tommy threw down the printout, his head hanging down between his legs.

"Goddamn it, I haven't thought about that in _years_! You had me so fuckin' scared, thinkin' the Devil was going to kill us or some shit." 

"After you left, and I came to, Lita begged me to stop fucking with it. She said I was gonna get us all killed. She was _crying_ , I'd never seen her cry before that."

"I don't remember all that shit about the party, but man, it must have been true. It's so typical, you know?"

"I didn't think I remembered until I read it. Dude, I'm sorry I gave you shit about this, I am freaked the fuck out now. But you know what? Now I remember what stopped it."

"What?"

"Think about it. Somebody had to die."

"Oh fuck - no, I don't want to think about that again!"

"I actually wish it had been fucking Deana. I would have -"

"No man, don't fuckin' put that negativity out there!"

Nikki sighed. A couple minutes passed and then Tommy sniffled loudly.

"You know what I thought?" he asked, his voice clogged with tears. "I thought that if I _had_ to die, then I would be willing to die **for you**. God, I think of myself then and I was just so desperate for you to love me."

"I did. I do. Don't cry, T, I'm sorry."

Nikki held Tommy as he sobbed, body shaking.

"Besides, we all know it was really me. I was the Devil."

"You were evil, but you weren't, like, Evil."

They gently knocked their heads together, then made an _arrrgh_ sound.

Tommy rubbed at his face, breathing noisily. "Fuck, I cry at the drop of a goddamn hat these days. Sappy old man."

"Fuckin' pussy."

"Fuck you, Sixx."

"Fuck _you_. And hey, I think somebody hacked that server and they're fucking with _us_."

"What if it's just somebody out there who knows? Like, when we read Rich's final draft of the script, didn't it feel like he had been there too? Maybe there **is** somebody psychic, or maybe it's just like you said, somebody with a really good imagination."

"Imagination? You can't _imagine_ exact events!" Nikki asserted.

"Dude, our lives have always been _unbelievable_ , right? Don't we always start out by saying, `You wouldn't believe me if I told you, but this is a true story,' and they still don't quite believe us."

"Why are they making it look like this shit is coming from ourselves?" Nikki demanded.

"Think about it: maybe they're trying to tell us something about us. We did this to _ourselves_." Tommy replied.

"We did _everything_ to ourselves...didn't we?" Nikki asked.

And they sat there, contemplating that particular mindfuck of a question, while the bass thumped from below, and their phones buzzed and chimed, and cars honked outside, and they longed to melt and mesh once more as comfort against these memories of their mutual obsession...but they didn't.


	4. The best advice I never took was my own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The particular inside joke I’m referencing in the story-within-the-story is something I saw in an interview from 1986, so it’s not chronologically correct—but hey, it’s fiction, right? *wink* There’s also at least one other detail which I skewed for the sake of narrative convenience but I figure no one but me is going to be annoyed at that.

A scheduled dual interview had to be postponed, and that was how Nikki found himself Facetiming with Tommy on his iPad as his eternal partner-in-crime went on a culinary binge to fill up those now free hours. Nikki was half-supine in a high-end recliner which would do almost everything for you (originally created for those professional gamers who needed to keep their seat for hours at a time) watching Tommy cook and like just about everything involving him doing something, it was highly entertaining.

"This is, like, my favorite cooking show **ever** ," Nikki teased, "I wish I was there, but I can't let you make me fat again."

"Dude, I wasn't shoving groceries down your throat - you did that to _yourself_."

"You get off junk, you need _something_ , right? But it **is** your fault, you skinny motherfucker and your fuckin' metabolism of a hummingbird."

He slurped loudly from his fourth cup of coffee, and one of the various itches in his brain was one which reminded him how satisfying it was to smoke. He quickly crushed it, because that was one vice it would be way too easy to fall back into, his wife threatening to banish him to the poolhouse not withstanding.

"Don't be jealous, Sixxy, that's not cool."

"Goddamn, you haven't called me that in ages!"

"Because you hated it!"

"I know, but that never stopped you."

Their banter continued on in this way for a while, in between Tommy discussing his quest for the perfect homemade Teriyaki chicken bowl, and then just as Nikki was reminding him that Tommy still hadn't made him his favorite cheesecake as he had requested for his birthday the previous year, they each heard the other's phone chime in their call.

"Jinx!" Tommy exclaimed. "You owe me a Jack-and-Coke!"

"Now you know you gotta BYOB when you roll with me, T-Bone. Besides, why do you still drink that shit, ugh!"

Tommy had paused in his preparations, wiping his hands on a dish towel and picking up his phone. "Huh, it's an email from Mick."

Nikki took his phone out of his shirt pocket. "Yeah, mine too."

They each viewed the subject line with a similarly puzzled expression.

_WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?!_

Tommy opened the email and saw the originating address designation. MARS. His balls felt like they were trying to climb back up into his body.

"What the fuck, man?" Nikki said, and his voice had gone higher than even his normal speaking range which was considerably higher than his bandmates. He thought he sounded like a whiny little bitch but on the other hand, that's exactly how he felt in the moment as well. 

Tommy was more succinct in his reaction. "Dude, we are _so fucked_."

 

One for Yes, Two for No

Early enough in the tour that they were still referring to Vince's buddy Mike as Fresh Meat since he had joined this caravan of insanity - and making him work his ass off for the privilege with the job of keeping them barely contained and showing up in time for Stage Call every night - they were rolling down I-10 to Mobile in semi-humid thick blackness and Mike was telling them that he wasn't sure how Alabama would take to Mötley.

"Not _all_ the kids can be rednecks," Nikki opined, ever cocksure in his assessments. "There's plenty of kids who just wanna get crazy and it doesn't matter who's up on that stage."

Two to three days on, one to two days off, that was their demanding schedule, but wasn't this the shit?! Living the dream, friends and enemies, for motherfuckin' certain.

"Yeah it does!" Tommy argued. "Because we fuckin' **rock** , dude!"

"That's not what I mean, jellybean," Nikki replied. "Like, they're all there for that motherfucker." He pointed to the slumped form of one Ozzy Osbourne, across the aisle on one of the benches. "And they're there because they wanna get fucked up and fuck and fight, right? And that's fine. We can't get all starry-eyed about this shit, that's when people start tryin' to fuckin' take advantage of you."

"Nikki's paranoid," Tommy told their newest recruit. "But in a good way."

"Oh it's in the bad way too, but whatever. You better hit the rack, Fresh Meat, we roll into town in a few hours and you gotta get _our_ shit together."

Mike saluted his anarchic authority figure and went down the aisle to the bunks. Vince and Mick were already sacked out and those who had come along for the ride had either climbed into one or fell where they stood, in a manner of speaking. But Nikki and Tommy didn't want to sleep, not when they could get wired on krell and live in the moment instead.

"Oh dude!" Tommy blurted out. "Check it out!" He held up a finger, signalling patience, and then walked over to his own bunk and riffled through his belongings. He returned with a round-shaped wrapped parcel which he placed in Nikki's hands.

"What the fuck is this?" Nikki asked, looking thoroughly surprised, and Tommy grinned. Because Nikki was suspicious of everything and everyone, he was difficult to catch in an unguarded moment.

"I got you a present! From this freaky-ass Voodoo shop in the Quarter."

"When did you have the time? Was this before or after we got our asses beat?"

"Before, dude. Jake got me up and we went for a walk. He wanted to watch the parades `n shit."

"You actually got up in the daytime, wow."

"Right?! Then we passed this big display window and I saw it, I knew I had to get it for you. It turned out to be a Voodoo shop and the chick inside? Man, she was choice! She said she was Haitian, her skin was this beautiful golden color, and she had long black hair. Oh man, I was in love!"

"As usual," Nikki quipped dryly.

"And so I was doing my rap on her, y'know, `cause I wanted her to come to the show, but she wouldn't go for it. Open it!" Tommy gestured excitedly at the package, and Nikki inspected it.

"Fuckin' heavy, man. Did you wrap it?"

"Naw dude, she did, when I said it was a present for you. She told me to think of you and hold her hand. I did and then she made this face like she'd been suckin' on a lemon. Said you were a death dealer and I should be careful. I said fuck yeah you were a badass! Then Jake said to hurry up or he was gonna leave me behind. It was pretty crazy out there."

"She didn't read your fortune or any of that shit?"

"Naw - I asked her name but she wouldn't tell me; she said: `Names have power, your friend knows all about that.'"

NIkki nodded. "She sounds like a serious witch, for sure."

"She wanted some of my hair, she said she could make me a charm, but I said if she wouldn't tell me her name then I wasn't givin' her my hair. So then she said she'd give me something for free; that the easiest love spell was to braid someone else's hair into your own, and they'll come to you, but sometimes it might take a while."

Nikki's eyes bore into Tommy's. "I read that too. There's a whole thing about making knots, they hold the power of your intentions, you store them until whatever it is you want happens, or whatever, and then you untie them."

"Freaky."

"Well damn, T-Bone, I might start cryin' `n shit."

"Whatever, dude!" But Nikki could tell Tommy was feeling that romantic high he always received via his natural impulse for generosity.

Nikki gently unwrapped the heavy object which bit by bit revealed itself as some kind of crystal skull. It was realistic to a point, but looked as though it had been fashioned from black glass, with a crystal cluster inside, like the remnants of a damaged mind. It had a definite vibe to it, Nikki could understand why Tommy had thought it would be perfect for him. He laughed low and wicked.

"Shit, you _could_ kill someone with this thing."

"It's all, like, one big rock or whatever. That's what she said."

"It must have cost you your entire per diem."

Tommy grinned. "Yeah, pretty much. But it's worth it if you like it."

"Dude, this is the raddest thing anyone's ever given me, but if you tell anyone I said that I _will_ have to hurt you."

Tommy made the locking lips gesture, tossing away the imaginary key.

"So who are you gonna get to fall in love with you?"

Tommy sat back, his expression turning somewhat coy. He took a sip of beer and drummed his fingertips on the table between them. "Awww dude, it'd have to be a real hard case, y'know? Like, nothing's gonna work `cept for black magic."

"It's not black magic, T, it's more like what they call root work. Folk magic."

"Dang, you know a lot `bout this shit, doncha?"

"I've been readin' a lot `bout it, yeah."

"Hey, so why don't we just test it? Like, you give me some of your hair."

Nikki turned his bright gaze on Tommy again. There was just something about when Nikki looked at you full-on and those eyes...they were kinda witchy too, now that Tommy thought about it. They hooked you... _hard_.

"T-Bone, are you telling me you want me to fall in love with you?"

"We _are_ in love," Tommy whispered, scarcely daring to say it. "But I just wonder what would happen."

They were relatively alone, they knew, as alone as they could be on a tour bus full of wastoids - much like themselves - in the middle of the night, piloted by a guy who had to insist that no one fuck with him while he was on the job upon penalty of him crashing the vehicle and killing everyone. Still, they could barely breathe in this moment, their hearts pounding from more than the coke.

"What would happen?" Nikki leaned in, his eyes a glittering hazel inquiry. "Do you think. That you can. _**Own** me_?"

The last words were rendered in a tone somewhere between seduction and threat.

Tommy shivered. Nikki could do all kinds of shit with his voice to make you feel whatever it was he wanted you to feel. Doc had pegged him as a master manipulator from the beginning, and it wasn't a lie, but Tommy preferred to think of it as the kind of thing a god does just to remind you that they can.

"No one could ever own you, Sixx, I know that. I just -" He felt himself blushing and stammering in a way he had **never** done in his life. Who the fuck was _this_ loser who couldn't even talk?

"What?" A thick breathy whisper and Tommy knew he was done for. Nikki would pry every last ounce of devotion out of him, always hungry for any evidence of it.

"I just want you _in me_ , all the time. So maybe if I have your hair braided into mine, then I can feel that, even a little bit. That's all."

_Fuck...yeah I'm in love, and you know it too, don't you? Go ahead, just rip out my heart and swallow it whole._

Nikki sat back, smirking. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay."

Tommy eyed Nikki skeptically. "Because?"

"Why not?"

"Bullshit, man - **why**. I mean, I'll do it, of course, but I just wanna know."

"I don't know _why_ , not exactly. But if you're gonna give me shit about it, then -"

"You said you would!" Tommy exclaimed in a strained whisper.

"Then why are we talking about it?"

Nikki produced the knife he always carried with him and cut off a piece from the underside of his hair. "Go over there," he said, gesturing to a nearby bench. "I'll put it in the back."

"Do you even know how to braid, dude?"

"Yes I do, so shut up and let me do it."

"Okay okay!"

The miles rolled by, punctuated by various sounds of snoring and other noises made by people who are not just asleep, but unconscious. They could hear a faint metallic whine from the front, a signal drifting in and out of static, their driver - like all those of his ilk - listening to Country music.

"Fuck, we gotta get some better tapes for Chuckie."

"Dude - Doc said not to mess with him `cause he could kill us."

"I wish Al could be our driver, dude - now **that** would be some shit!"

"Fuckin' A!"

Nikki wound a second rubber band around the bottom of the braid, whispering softly.

"Huh?"

"Shut up, I'm putting my intentions into the charm."

Tommy felt himself shivering again. He wasn't quite certain he believed in such things but he knew Nikki **did** and that tingle of the ineffable he felt was the force of Nikki's belief encircling him as tightly as the braid itself.

"I'm _in you_ now, so don't you ever try to get me out, you fucker," Nikki hissed.

"Never," Tommy replied, his voice hoarse with the strain of pretending this wasn't something utterly profound and life-altering. His heart continued to pound as Nikki pulled him close, moving aside his hair and pressing his teeth into Tommy's skin...yet another gesture of possession.

 

They had gotten better at giving interviews, their semi-permanent intoxicated state enabling a certain glibness. But Nikki had a joke: if Tommy ever faltered when it came to giving an answer - hungover, strung out, sleep-deprived or just plain stumped - Nikki would reach over and pull on their tether.

"One for yes, two for no," he'd say and Tommy would act like a puppet, jerking his head with a mechanical nod.

But there were other times...making the walk to the stage, feeling the heat of massed bodies and the weight of those expectations, their bones vibrating with the hungry roar of the crowd. Mick would go up the stairs first, as fast as he could manage, then Tommy and Nikki. Vince would always be last - sometimes because he had stopped to grope one of the girls on the way - and Nikki would grab Tommy by the shoulders behind the amps just before they went to their appointed places. Tommy would howl and Nikki would growl and then his hand went instinctively to the place they were entwined. He would tug once, hard at the root, and Tommy would let out a small gasp of pain. They were completely focused on each other even as thousands of people screamed all around them.

"Let's fuck `em up, T-Bone," and his boy would obediently nod, always in service to the master plan of domination.

_yes yes yes **YES**_

 

 

After reading Mick's email - he hadn't read the attached text file and accused his bandmates of playing a stupid prank on him - they decided to stay on the call and read it together. When Tommy saw the title he gasped.

"Duuuuuude!" he exclaimed. "Who the fuck wrote this?! Nobody knew about that but you and me."

"Candice didn't know?"

"No, I told her I had done it myself one day when I was bored but I didn't wanna take it out because I thought it would be bad luck. She threatened to cut it off, but then the shit went down with Vince and she forgot all about it."

"I don't even know where that skull is now," Nikki said.

"Sixx! That was, like, the first really expensive thing I ever bought you."

"I know; I always knew where it was until the last time we moved. I was gonna put it in the radio studio but I couldn't find it."

" **I** kept it. I know _exactly_ where it is!"

"Where what is?"

"The braid."

"You kept it?!"

"Well yeah; why wouldn't I?"

"I thought you had burned it, back in `99. I thought that's why you left me, because there was nothing between us anymore."

"I cut it off because I had to start over again - like, _everything_. But I couldn't destroy it, not ever. I'd **never** cut you out."

Nikki stared at the screen for a moment, lost in memories.

"Keep cooking, I'm coming over."

"But -" Tommy said, though Nikki had already ended the call.

 

While he was stuck in the burgeoning rush hour traffic, Nikki called the guy who oversaw his online presence, asking him to track down activity on a particular server, reading all the information provided on the header of the email he had personally received.

"Well I can ping the server, maybe, trace the traffic, but I thought all that stuff was shut down years ago."

"So did I. How soon can you know?"

"Give me a couple hours, at least. Some of these programs take a while to run."

Reaching his destination, Nikki parked in the usual spot and went over to the studio side door, pressing the buzzer. As soon as the door opened, he said: "So I'm trying to figure out where the fuck those emails are really coming from and -"

Tommy had pulled him inside, shut the door and threw the lock and then they found themselves in a wholly familiar position. All they wanted to know in that moment is if it felt the same as they remembered it.

And the answer was... _not exactly_. But close enough.


	5. Interlude: telepathy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will say that as someone who also grew up in the San Gabriel Valley I do tend to believe it is where that particular idiom originated, although I imagine there are those who disagree.

Unpublished excerpt from interviews for _The Dirt_ , conducted in March 2000.

Interview session 2-18 - Tommy  
( _transcription and editorial notes: Strauss_ )

(Tommy is drunker than usual today - I am beginning to think that the only way any of them can survive this process is by being shitfaced. But that's okay, it's not the dangerous kind of drunk for Tommy. I have already heard _so many stories_ about what happens when you combine a bored and/or horny Tommy with alcohol, and sometimes [usually] cocaine. So thank...God?...there's no more cocaine? Hopefully?)

Lee: So dude...what? You wanted to know what it's like, us being brothers?

Strauss: Uh, yeah, sure.

Lee: It's not like **that**. We're practically married. Nikki used to say he was...what is that thing that, like, hangs around when you don't want it to.  
(He spends several moments staring into space and mumbling to himself. If only I had more context I might be able to figure it out, but Tommy is not necessarily the best at providing such details.)

Lee: Fuck, I don't know. But a thing that, like, follows you around. I mean, we were the Twins, right? But, like, it's because we're telepathic.

Strauss: Really?

Lee: Dude, _totally_. Honest-to-fucking-God I could talk to Nikki, and he could talk to me, with our minds. It just _happened_ , man, although sometimes I think the drugs helped.  
(He laughs, the infamous surfer dude bray of his that I witnessed in my research, watching various interviews - it's like an amalgam of all the actors who've ever played a _righteous dude_ in the movies. But it's like Tommy originated it - so those dudes came not from the San Fernando Valley or even the beaches, but straight outta the San Gabriel Valley.)  
Lee: (deep breath) It was - _it is_ \- really weird sometimes. Because I totally fuckin' know when he's thinkin' of me, and then I have to be all casual, like, `Hey man, what's up?' when what I really wanna say is: `Dude, don't be sad,' or whatever. Sixx hates it when he can't say things the way **he** wants to. Like, `Don't fuckin' tell me what I'm thinkin,' T-Bone, you don't know!' But dude, _I totally **do** know_.

Strauss: So what is Nikki thinking right now?

Lee: Honestly? About the next fix.

Strauss: I would say you don't need to be psychic to know that.

Lee: Nah - but it ain't wrong, y'know what I mean? Don't fuckin' tell him I said that, though. He'll bitch me out from here to next year.

(He lapses into silence, but constantly fidgeting. That's another thing I have come to observe; the others - when I've seen them face-to-face - can practice a certain poise at times, but Tommy is totally incapable of stillness. Some part of his body has to be moving at all times. I imagine he even twitches in his sleep.)

Lee: Okay, so it wasn't like brothers at all. I had a dad, Nikki didn't, but it was almost like **he** was my dad too, like he needed to create a family so he just adopted me and remade me in his image. Y'know, `cause you want a son to follow you in his footsteps. And then he used to say that Gunner could be whatever he wanted, but that's because he already had me to be his heir, kinda.

Strauss: It makes sense that you would call it a marriage, though, because there are husbands who do that to their wives. Find someone young and pliant and then remake them into what they really want in a wife.

(Tommy laughs again, but doesn't respond. He lights a cigarette and sits there smoking for a time, laughing to himself and I suspect he thinks I'm right about that but he can't actually admit to it - whether for indiscretion's sake or some other consideration. They have - in theory, at least - committed to a no-holds-barred perspective on the sleaziest of their exploits, but there are still deeper things they are unwilling to articulate.)

 

 

Sometimes he didn't know which times were real or just another junk dream, waking up next to Tommy, side-by-side in his bed or on the floor of his closet, and that commingled scent he loved, which always flooded him with the association of _Tommy_ and made him feel wistful: cigarettes, Drakkar Noir, boozy sweat, and that weird chemical sweetness of styling products.

Staring into warm wide eyes, they could do that for hours, practicing their telepathy.

"What am I thinking?" he would ask, low and breathy and totally smacked-out. The bliss he had craved in his fucked-up existence now finally granted in the form of poppies and this boy tangled up with him, entwined in secretive vice and in life.

Tommy would stare and stare and stare and they'd forget about time and even that there was a world outside.

"I'm gonna save you, Sixx," he slurred. "I fuckin' swear I'm gonna do it."

"I didn't ask to be saved."

"But I always save the day," Tommy murmured. They came together, devoid of actual hunger because the junk didn't let you care about anything else but desiring of touch, always longing for proximity and physicality, and the way Tommy looked at Nikki...nothing and no one in his miserable life had ever given him that same yearning contact.

_I **do** love you...but you love me more._

Tommy's pinprick pupils, nearly eclipsed in the amber sea of his irises, a tenuous tether even as Nikki reached for the braid. A tunnel, narrowing until it finally suffocates.

_You will always love me, even when it starts to kill you._

Whispered three times three - three is the magic number, three is a true number, the number of the divine and of harmony - he wound the cord round and round and round, whispering in sets of three, fast and focused, imbuing the moment with his strongest force of Will.

_You are **mine** and you will always love me, even when it starts to kill you._

Because _of course_ it would...it will. And Nikki was poisonous, selfish, worthless.

But Tommy loved him anyway.

 

 

Whispered in the depths of the kiss but the tongue was otherwise engaged -

_I told you, stop tryin' to read my mind, goddamn it!_

\- the answer was to grasp harder, hold tighter, so deep in this kiss which has never truly ended, for nearly 40 years.

_You first, dude._


	6. The most insanely impulsive motherfucker I ever knew

Unpublished excerpt from interviews for _The Dirt_ , conducted in May 2000.

Interview session 1-09 - Vince  
_(transcription and editorial notes: Strauss)_

(Everyone led me to believe that Vince would be the worst in terms of his inherent lucidity but miracle of miracles he is here today clear-eyed and calm. I get the feeling he is sober because he believes he has some scores to settle.)

Neil: I bet you been talkin' to Doc, huh. Yeah? That fucker always talks so much shit about me.

Strauss: To be fair, he talked shit about _everybody_.

Neil: Of course he did! Master of deflection.  
(Even sober there is still a somewhat hollow-eyed emptiness about him. Although I've been told he's not particularly given to self-reflection I do wonder if there are certain things which haunt him.)

Neil: Did he tell you what he did before he became a manager? Dude was a fuckin' drug trafficker. Had the Caribbean locked-down, knew some of them cartel dudes, one of his best friends was, like, the biggest coke dealer outside of the cartels.

Strauss: I am aware there is a possible discrepancy between his story and everyone else's.

Neil: Oh that's the understatement of the year!  
(Vince laughs uproariously for over a minute.)  
Neil: (deep breath) You said you wanted to talk `bout Sixx but I don't fuckin' wanna talk `bout Sixx, man. The genius of Mötley, the soul of Mötley, what-the-fuck-ever - this is gonna be his thing, I know. It's _always_ his thing. So he can talk `bout his own fuckin' legend - or Tommy, so far up his ass, that fuckin' trendoid.

Strauss: Trendoid?

Neil: You know, a trendoid. Dude who is always into whatever is the trend right now. Tommy didn't used to be like that, but he's always wanted to be cool. That's his problem. He's so desperate for people to pay attention to him, and Nikki most of all. See, when me and Tommy hung out, when we were like brothers, I wasn't tryin' to change him or anything, we were just buds, you know? Hangin' out, and he was there for me, his parents too. They were all totally cool. But Sixx, man - if Nikki can't, like, control you then he'll tolerate your existence if he has to. Otherwise, you might as well **not** exist at all.

Strauss: Do you miss your friendship with Tommy?

Neil: I **did**. I mean, when we had nothin' - as fuckin' cliched as it sounds - it was cool. We were gonna work as hard as we possibly could to make it. But then, things started to change. I'd look at those two and they were like peas in a pod - that expression is so corny. But it's true, two totally fucked-up mutated peas in a pod that was way too tight for them to exist in. Nikki took everything that was innocent and happy about Tommy and just sucked it right out of him, like a fuckin' vampire or some shit.

(I hear a buzzing and Vince has taken a device from his pocket which is like a pager but with a keyboard. He frowns at the display then types out something with his thumbs. It occurs to me just then that this must be one of those BlackBerrys I keep reading about.)

Neil: Sorry man, my manager just wondered how much longer I'm gonna be.

Strauss: I wasn't aware there was a scheduling conflict.

(Vince shrugs apologetically and what can I do? I know what I'd **like** to do, but that's just wishful thinking.)

 

 

The kiss swallowed the world and he had to breathe. He should have run, this act, this choice, was collapsing everything around him. But he wanted it more than he had ever wanted _anything_ , even the drugs.

_Be careful what you wish(ed) for._

He couldn't say no. Story of his life. Nikki couldn't say no and Tommy wouldn't say no.

Nikki thought of that last argument with Vince, the one where they couldn't decide if he had quit or Nikki had fired him. He had stared down their stony faces, soaked from the Biblical storm, and looked at Tommy as though he pitied him.

"You two deserve each other - I hope Hell is nice and cozy for you fuckers."

Nikki began to form a sarcastic retort and Tommy yelled "Oh fuck you, Wharton!" Vince just sneered and retreated back into the rain. They had exchanged a guilty glance then looked over at Mick who had his eyes closed.

_Does he know? Does **everybody** know?!_

"Fuck `im," Mick declared, ever the pragmatist. "Let's just play some shit."

But it was true, as time would reveal. In some kind of co-dependent hell it seemed they would remain, until they didn't. And returning to their bond, it was never quite the same until that day in New Orleans when Tommy had turned to him while they watched their doppelgangers rehearse and whispered, "This reminds me of why I fell in love with you."

And those words had unlocked everything within him. Nikki nodded back in that moment, but he could feel the knots reforming as if they were right back at the beginning.

But now, he should have run. With the greatest force of will he pushed himself away from Tommy's embrace and looked into that sweet warmth he wanted to drown in once more.

"This is crazy, and we can't be crazy right now," Nikki gasped.

"I know, I know, but I couldn't stop myself," Tommy replied, equally breathless.

Nikki's phone rang. _Thank you, Universe, for whoever that is._

 

Her Albatross

He knew the perfect percentages in his loathsome chemistry experiments, exactly how much to level him out and even remain somewhat functional. Not enough to get off, but it didn't matter to him if the chicks were talking shit about Nikki Sixx not being able to deliver on his virulent allure. 

_Fuck `em with an artichoke._ It was a pun on the old cliche which made him laugh for its' absurdity. And then after an hour she would pass out and he would be bored, roaming the hallway and knocking on nearby doors, only to be greeted by silence or - as the people in his circle knew him so well by now - a shouted _Go the fuck away, Sixx!_ or something similar.

Those hours just before dawn are the loneliest time to be alive.

Nikki lurched out into the hallway, put his face against the door across from his own and knocked.

"Fuck off!" he heard Tommy yell from the other side.

"T-Bone! What's goin' on?" Nikki responded.

A moment later Tommy was at the door and Nikki stumbled against him as it was opened.

"Sixx, what the fuck?! Do **you** wanna get arrested too?" Tommy exclaimed.

"Wha -" Nikki looked down. He'd forgotten to put clothes on.

"Get in here," Tommy commanded, herding Nikki into the room. A pouty blonde sat up in the bed, pulling the bedsheet around her.

"What the fuck?! Oh, hey Nikki."

Tommy pointed at her. "Shut up."

"What? I thought it might be _your wife_ , asshole!"

"Is Heather here?" Nikki mumbled.

"Alright, you gotta go," Tommy said, throwing various personal possessions at the girl.

"I'll leave, fine, just don't throw my shit, you fucker!"

"Then get the fuck out already!"

"Why is everybody yelling?" Nikki asked, sliding against the outside wall near the door.

The girl dressed quickly and grabbed her purse. As she put her heels on she looked over at Nikki's unclothed appearance.

"Huh, now I get why the other chicks were sayin' Sixx doesn't get much pussy."

"Get the fuck out!" the Terror Twins shouted at her, and she did just that.

"Fuck that bitch," Tommy muttered. "You need to lie down, dude?"

"Yeah, I'm -" Nikki trailed off, his analysis of his current state faltering. "So didya?"

"What?"

"Fuck her."

"Uh, yeah. Wanna sit in the wet spot?"

"You're fuckin' disgustin,' T."

Tommy brayed and slid down among the pillows. "C'mere man, that carpet is all scratchy."

Nikki lazily waved an arm. "I'm fine."

Tommy got up from the bed and looked at Nikki, slumped over like a pile of dirty laundry. "C'mon Sixx, I'll be lonely without you."

"Yer full o'shit, T-Bone."

"Yeah yeah yeah, just a few steps, c'mon." He pulled Nikki to his feet and steered him to the bed. "There, isn't that better?"

"Whatever." Nikki turned onto his side and curled into himself. Tommy made certain the door was locked and climbed in next to him. "Here comes the big spoon!"

"Is it full of smack?" Nikki quipped.

"Just chill, bro. Teach me that song you were playin' at soundcheck."

"It was `Tonight.'"

"Nuh-uh, I already know that one. This was totally different. Real pretty, kinda sad."

"Don't wanna."

"C'mon dude - I liked it!"

Nikki made a half-hearted attempt to clear his throat, and his voice was still raspy and totally off-key but even so, Tommy felt like something inside him was being squeezed too tight.

_Baby, let's pretend that tonight could live forever_  
_if we close our eyes and believe it might come true_.  
_Baby, let's pretend we could always live together_  
_but for now just let me spend the night with you._

Though Nikki could never get close to Eric Carmen's sugary yearning high tenor, he totally nailed the bittersweet longing of the lyrics. Tommy carefully peeled away some of the strands of sweat-matted hair stuck to the side of Nikki's face and kissed his shoulder.

"That's all it is, you know," Nikki whispered after a time. 

Tommy had been trying to match his breathing to his bandmate's, something he had learned to do on those nights when he was too wired to sleep but Heather insisted he do the husband thing and actually sleep with his wife even though she was up at the asscrack of dawn almost every day. He had come to the conclusion that being an actress wasn't glamorous _at all_.

"What?" he asked in an equally hushed tone.

"All of this. It's not really real. We just think it is because that's what we wanna believe."

"Hmm." Tommy shifted and sighed and kept his eyes closed. He wasn't that fond of Nikki's metaphysical flights of fancy and humored them out of love, much the same as when Heather reminisced on her college and sorority days - with no actual understanding of why she would ever miss such a thing.

 _Yet another reason why she's so far outta your league, dude._ And now Tommy wondered - not for the first time - if Nikki wasn't right after all. He had wanted so badly to be the prince who married the princess and took her away to a magical land. But their castle had a shifting foundation causing cracks to appear and his name was Nikki.

"You feel real enough to me," Tommy said, tracing Nikki's hipbone with his fingertips.

"Because you want me so bad. Admit it, T, I'm the one. I'm the one you can't let go of."

"I can't dig you out," he replied, thinking of their hair entwined like thorny vines which choke and suffocate everything around them.

"I'm her albatross," Nikki intoned in that same whisper. "She keeps hoping I'll stop following you but I'm always there."

"That's a bird, right?"

"Yeah. You can't kill `em `cause it's bad luck, and if you did, then you'd be haunted by one. Their rotting carcass `round yer neck."

"Gross, dude!"

"Shoulda told `er, T, shoulda told her you were already married to Mötley."

"Duuuude, she woulda never said yes if I did!"

"You can't have that thing, don't you see? You're not the knight on the fuckin' white horse or whatever."

"Hey, just try to sleep, okay? I'm too fuckin' fried to be talkin' this shit right now."

"Princess is gonna figure it out one of these old days, just you wait."

Nikki eventually succumbed to unconsciousness while Tommy lay there beside him, eyes wide with sleepless panic and regret.

 

 

The neighborhood looked familiar, but Nikki realized that most of Los Angeles was inherently familiar to him now, after decades-long association. A small clapboard house, lone survivor of a zoning re-designation, stood dilapidated but enduring among industrial structures, rusting junk, concrete and weeds, the odd bit of graffiti. The address had to be right, the place where his guy said the server was broadcasting from, but he couldn't recall anything about this place in connection with their past business dealings.

He knocked, only now wondering how smart it was to have come alone but the impulse to do so had not left him. Nikki had said nothing to Tommy about the true purpose of the call, or why he had to leave as quickly as he had appeared. He had wanted this revelation to be his alone. 

Because _whoever_ had written those stories had sounded so much like him.

A man answered the summons: dark brown hair graying at the edges, a pasty-faced man who was perhaps a bit too full in the face and around the midsection, but even so there was that look of determined hunger, detachment from prosaic concerns. Someone who had longed for things to be different. This man was aged and yet when Nikki looked into him he saw someone he recognized.

It was the eyes. Eyes arrestingly bright even after so many years of toxic emotions seeking to overwhelm the vessel they occupied.

"My greatest act of alchemy," the man declared, blinking at the strong sunlight and the sight of Nikki. "And here you are."


	7. All my lives, all my lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -1- I owe an enormous debt to Poppy Z. Brite for the idea of puddle-as-portal/sentient entity.  
> -2- Nikki now claims that he worked at Terner's Liquor, which if nothing else certainly makes more sense geographically in terms of certain events in the Mötley Crüe origin story.

(Email from Mick Mars to Neil Strauss, in lieu of an interview session for _The Dirt_ , January 2000.  
_I’ve actually tried to forget a lot of this bullshit, like I was never there. It made things easier, not that anything has ever been easy for me. Can’t we just leave it at that?_ )

 

Nikki was instantly consumed by a possibly irrational fear that if he stepped across the threshold of the house he would disappear entirely. The house itself made him think of every horror story he had ever watched or read. It felt to him like the house didn’t belong, and therefore, neither did anything inside of it.

But then, to venture inside and view the walls, covered in pieces of his own history, klaxons began sounding in his brain once again that he should run...if not for the fact that the face he had beheld was his own. A thoroughly insane conclusion but one he could no longer deny.

Another Nikki, one who actually looked his age, a man who was the one he _would_ have been, living a dream deferred, stood back but eyed him avidly as he took in the sight.

“You look like shit, man,” was what came out of him and the other snickered.

“You were always so vain, Sixx.”

“So what do I call you? Frankie?”

“I killed him. I killed him and then I tried to kill **you** too, but you’re like a goddamn cockroach, you amoral little shit.”

Where had he heard that phrase before? Someone looking down at him, an expression twisted with disgust.

_...but then again, you were always an amoral little shit._

“So -”

“Call me whatever the fuck you want. You’re Nikki Sixx, and I’m the guy who created you.”

_This isn’t real, you know. Any of it._

Voices ringing ‘round his brain, rising to a deafening chorus of accusations, angry retorts, tearful pleading, cold empty threats.

“You’d better sit down, Sixx - you look like you need a drink.”

“I don’t drink anymore.”

“Yeah I know. It’s all sober all the time, right? No more pain to bury under the lovely numbing effects of substances.”

“I have an understanding with my pain now.”

“Sure you do. But you’d still better sit down because you’re the one who doesn’t look so good right now.”

“What. **The fuck.** Is all this?”

“This...this is what happens when you outlive your own infamy. And then you think you can make your own myth about it. Well allow me to inform you, asshole: _I’m the one_ who makes the myths around here, not you. That movie? **Is bullshit!** ”

Nikki flinched at the tone and volume of the other’s voice. So much rage dripping from the words. He flinched like he used to flinch when those worthless lowlifes took out their frustrations and insecurities on him. Until one day he decided he’d never flinch again.

_You wanna kill me? Fuckin’ go ‘head, I don’t give a fuck. You think I’m afraid? You don’t know shit about me._

“It’s just a movie, man. It’s a story.”

“You don’t get to tell the stories!”

“That’s what I do, I’m -”

It hit him, like he’d been hit by any number of things in his life. A collision which was not wholly unexpected. He felt float-y, like that first tab of Percocet in his bloodstream which he could remember as clearly as if it was happening right now and he was completely disassociated from it all: good, bad, and everything in between. His greatest love, the siren song of opiates calling from the deep waters of oblivion.

“ - the writer, the author?” The guy began laughing then, and it felt like he would never stop. Nikki could only sit there, his entire existence unspooling within the sound.

 

removing obstacles, consulting mirrors

There’s a lie which certain chemicals tell you: they can take away your pain, but they can also bring you closer to others. Your guilt, your shame, your loathing - if you share the load then it doesn’t feel quite so bad.

Yet another braid to bind, those molecules. _Visit the interior of the earth…_

Go down down down and see what you find there. The secret stone of his love, for certain.

A heavy lump, a weight which could be both comforting and suffocating.

Nikki had written various verses/poems for Tommy, but was afraid to share, afraid that Tommy’s reaction would not be ridicule but rather the sweetest devotion...a substance too pure, so pure it would probably kill him for all he knew what to do with it. Even as it had been his more ardent desire.

_We’ve been everywhere, seen everything_  
_but the only treasure I ever wanted_  
_is what I found when you look at me_  
_when you reach for me_  
_when you smile at me._

_I’d never call you Sugar_  
_I’d never call you sweet_  
_I’d rather call you wicked_  
_you know just what I need_  
_when you look inside of me._

 

(Years later, someone would send him a platitude, paraphrased from a famous poet -  
_When you surrender to the air you stop falling and you start floating._  
\- and it caused an ache to spread through him much as a particular warmth did, to remember that feeling. Thinking that must have been what he did for a time, surrender to that love even as it felt so much like addiction.)

 

Once upon a time there was a prince in exile. But a self-imposed exile, waiting for his fortunes to turn downward, so very low that it became a kind of triumph...but one which was on his own bruised and bloody terms.

In the alleyway behind Terner’s Liquor there was a puddle. The employees all marveled that the puddle never got any larger or smaller, it existed in its’ depression unchanged, through near-constant sunshine and intermittent rain. The surface of the water resembled an oil slick, which made Nikki think it wasn’t water at all. A kaleidoscopic effect of shifting colors and shapes.

When Tony came by to count the till every night just as the clubs were closing, Nikki would go out back and stare at the puddle. He made up stories about it in his head. But he was in the grip of an atavistic fear when it came to investigating it.

“Sixx, get your goddamn ass in here, we’ve got four more customers then I’m shuttin’ it down!”

“Geez Tony, don’t get your nuts in a knot. What’s the deal with that puddle?”

“Puddle? What the fuck are you talkin’ ‘bout?”

Nikki looked at the dapper proprietor even as he was making change for the wastoids who came in for the booze and snacks they needed to make it till dawn.

“There’s a puddle near the dumpster that never evaporates.”

“Now that’s a ten-dollar word if I ever heard one.”

Tony was both admiring of Nikki’s autodidactic status and mocking, but always in favor of a person who wanted to make something of themselves and of all the kids who worked at Terner’s, Nikki was the one who positively shone with ambition, like one of those glow-in-the-dark watches painted with radium.

“Get the fuck out,” Nikki barked as two more kids came through the door, all leather and late-night attitude. “We’re fuckin’ **closed**.”

“Aww Tony, c’mon man, we just want a beer!”

“Sorry dudes, but my attack dog is correct.”

Nikki flipped them off as they turned around and departed with a dejected shuffle. He locked the door and switched the sign from OPEN to CLOSED.

“Is it, like, toxic waste or some shit?”

“Fuck man, I dunno! This is Hollywood, ain’t no tellin’ what kinda shit be bubblin’ up out the ground, oozin’ from the walls, drippin’ from the ceiling!”

“That’s goddamn poetry, boss.”

“You goddamn right it is! Now, what didya steal from me today, Skinny Boy?”

“Just a bag of chips.”

“Now that is some bullshit -”

“Okay, a bag of chips and a Löwenbräu.”

“What I tell you ‘bout that - if you’re gonna steal a beer it better be a cheap beer, you amoral little shit!”

“But all the cheap beer tastes like piss. _Actual_ piss!”

“Exactly. I let you get away with murder, Sixx, but don’t test me!”

The two completed the nightly routine, then Nikki went out and pulled the steel security gate across the front of the store, securing it on one side with two heavy padlocks. He rolled the word around in his mind. _Amoral._ He thought he might have heard it before, maybe from one of the CPS workers who evaluated him in the wake of the incident. No matter that he had portrayed himself as the victim, those people with the dead eyes had seen it all. Probably seen kids who **had** committed murder. He looked at the scar on his forearm. 

_See this? There’s nothing I won’t do._

He heard a hail from across the street, some kids walking by and shouting his name. He waved and came around to the back of the store again, dropping to his haunches and staring into the black depths, the sodium glare of the nearby streetlamp shimmering atop the surface.

_Just like me, no one can see inside you. And it’s gonna stay that way._

“C’mon Sixx, grab your shit, I’m ready to go.”

Nikki stood up and sauntered over to the back door. “Like you have somethin’ to go home to.”

“I got the _Monday Night Movie_ and a turkey sandwich. Speakin’ of -”

Tony slapped a five-dollar bill against Nikki’s chest.

“Go get yourself some real food, for God’s sake!”

Nikki smirked and deftly palmed the money. “God ain’t got nothin’ to do with it, boss.”

 

The radio blaring, Nikki sat up in bed, his heart pounding harder than when he took crosstops, the remnants of a dream crawling through his skull. Something had emerged from the ground, and he watched it eat people. Almost as if he had commanded it, rather than simply stare as it was happening. But the people...they seemed to know him. They were screaming his name. But it wasn’t like they were scared. They screamed his name in the way he had always imagined it would happen. A kind of hysterical recognition.

He worked the day job in his usual daze, not even daydreaming of the typical rude desires. When he showed up at Terner’s he came in long enough to clock in and then visited the puddle again. Nikki got down on his hands and knees and stared into the dark.

“What are you?” he whispered. “Can you hear me?”

Silence, then punctuated by the afternoon guy yelling for Nikki to start his goddamn shift already.

“I need you to do something for me. I need somebody, somebody who understands me. Somebody who can help me find a way out of this bullshit. Can you do that? Or are you just some hallucination from my fucked-up brain?”

He felt something like a head rush just then...a dizzying _push_ where the world grayed out for a moment. He blinked rapidly and put a hand to his forehead.

“Okay, I believe you. _Please_.”

He yelled that he was coming so shut the fuck up already and he took his knife and ran it along the scar tissue on his arm, cutting only deep enough that crimson welts formed on its’ surface. He squeezed it and watched blood trickle into the puddle.

_Help me._

And then, when a guy with the same kind of blue-black hair walked through the door later that night, looking like the meanest of motherfuckers, Nikki blinked, not quite believing he was real. He said something, not realizing he was speaking aloud.

“You look like the rock n’roller type, man. Like, a _real_ rocker, not one of these Sunset poseurs.”

The guy turned his head very slowly, then approached the counter.

“Gimme a pint of that Cuervo, kid. And yeah, I guess you look like a rock n’roller too.”

Nikki grinned as he took a bottle from one of the shelves behind him and placed it on the counter.

“Fuckin’ A.”

 

“Oh a real date with destiny alright,” Nikki gibed. “That alien walked into my life and right back out of it again.”

“It makes for a great story though, doesn’t it?”

He stared at himself, whatever lay underneath the artifice of celebrity, as his mind rebelled at the thought of being so ordinary.

“If this is all a story, then why am I walking around like I don’t know it?”

“Think about what you said to Tommy the night this all started. You’re _true_ , you’re the truest thing I’ve ever created. You have actual magic in you.”

The man went into another room and returned with a heavy bundle, which he threw into Nikki’s lap. It looked like a bunch of rags, knotted and then braided together. Nikki picked it up, his eyes roaming over the various textures. Scraps of the stage costumes Fleur had created for them over the years, strips of various t-shirts and bits of leather. A braid.

_Wait a minute._

He dug it out from where it had been twisted and twined into the overall bundle. Blue-black hair, now looking dull and frail, wound around the bottom with numerous rubber bands of different colors. He looked up at himself, his hazel eyes full of sudden tears, gaping at the object in his hand.

“Now do you believe me?” his creator asked.


	8. Interlude: the subconscious always gets what it wants

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wherein The Author makes a cameo appearance in 1984

“If it wasn’t true I wouldn’t believe it.”  
-Rob Zombie on _The Dirt_

 

Old life, new life, old house, new house...the one constant was a closet of his own, the equal of any Hollywood celebrity or old money matriarch. A outlandishly lavish closet that he could hide in whenever desired. Even clean, sober, and as sane as he could possibly manage, Nikki still required a space where guilt didn’t crowd him quite so close. Or to wallow in just how fucked-up he was in the only place it truly mattered, that surreal science experiment known as the human mind.

Four AM and he would lie on the floor in front of the full-length mirror and ponder the past. A cavalcade of emotions come ‘round to entertain and accuse.

_You’ve spent a lot of time blaming everyone else but maybe...just maybe...you weren’t equipped to be a human being at all. You can forgive yourself for that, but accept that you were a walking problem. Accept that there’s a lot of pain and loss and anger between you and that kid standing behind you._

His sumptuous closet sanctuary made him regretful he couldn’t have kept the shitholes he inhabited throughout his life intact somehow for future anthropologists to study. For example, the shower in the North Hollywood apartment he shared with Laurie had been fairly clean but contained a particular piece of evidence he was desiring to produce for those myth-makers who weren’t getting the wigs right and claimed it was a budgetary concern. But he also knew why it was important for Douglas to pin the lens with his bright eyes and not, as Nikki did in those years, hide behind his bangs. 

_“I dunno,” Tommy said years ago after a first draft pass, “I mean, you’ve always got the most to say but whose story is this, exactly?”_

Black smears on the tile...Laurie loved to bitch at him for not dyeing his hair in the sink like a normal person.

“You wanna join my gang? First of all, we need to dye your hair.”

“Why?”

“Because this band is gonna have a look, and you’re the only one not fitting in now.”

Tommy blinked like he was a puppy and Nikki had just kicked him. Repeatedly.

“I thought you said I was cool.”

“You are, kinda. But this is _important_ , okay? Besides, you’re gonna look totally rad with blue-black hair. How’d you end up with brown hair anyway?”

“Why wouldn’t I -”

“I thought you said you were -”

“We’re just dark, okay? But not all Greek people have black hair, dude. And you didn’t have black hair before, and you’re Italian, right?”

“I don’t know what the fuck I am. But c’mon, think of it: people won’t be able to take their eyes off us when they see us together, especially when we find a blond singer.”

“For sure!”

Nikki had gotten his way, had molded Tommy into who he wanted him to be. But there were instances where the bridle chafed just the slightest. Such as the night they were hanging out at the Starwood and some guy recognized Tommy from Dealer.

“Steakhouse! Man, what’s up?! What happened to you guys, haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Hey dude!” Tommy answered cheerfully. “I’m in a new band now, Mötley Crüe.”

“You guys playin’ anywhere?”

“Not yet, but we’re gonna. Look out for it.”

“Yeah okay.”

Tommy turned to Nikki, ready to receive a grin for his advance man initiative, and his new bandmate’s expression was thoroughly baffled.

“Steakhouse? What. **The fuck**.”

“It’s my nickname!”

“Why?” His tone suggesting _you can’t possibly explain this to me_.

“I wasn’t a jock but the band guys used the same locker room, and dudes check each other out, y’know? One day one of the football dudes was all, ‘Man, Bass has got some meat!’ and then everybody started callin’ me Steakhouse.”

“That’s fuckin’ stupid.”

“Naw dude, it’s ‘cause I gotta t-bone in my pants!” Tommy cracked up like it was the height of comedic genius.

“I’m not fuckin’ callin’ you Steakhouse, not **ever**. T-Bone, on the other hand, that’s okay. That’s, like, almost cool.”

“Okay but Steakhouse has been my nickname for years now.”

“If I hear anybody callin’ you that I’m gonna break their fuckin’ hands.”

“Sixx, dude - chill. It’s just a name.”

“Names are _important_. You can’t be in this and just think it’s okay to be whatever. We have a sleazy image, cool stage names, and it’s gonna be amazing.”

“I know! I’m totally down for it, you know that.”

And he was. Nikki could spend those pre-dawn hours lost in contemplation of Tommy’s willingness to be reborn into the destiny Nikki glimpsed inside that lanky kid with the lame shag haircut, trying so hard in tight jeans and some blousy top he had “borrowed” from one of his girlfriends or his sister. Tommy had a vision of himself which no one else seemed to see until he and Nikki plotted their master plan for world domination over blueberry pancakes at Denny’s.

That lifelong wish... _send me somebody who doesn’t look at me like I’m stupid or crazy_.

Everything about them, everything around them, was artifice. It took him years to find the courage to admit it - a very different kind of _fuck you_ than the ones he was accustomed to handing out - but one thing was always true. A molecular bonding, a cohesion, a star burning in its’ nearly immortal fire, fueled this narrative which everyone believed was too unreal to be true.

 

 

He held the charm, he felt himself crack right down the center.

No, this was real, this was true!

_I’m a dirty little whore...I’m everything and more…_

Making the boy he loved into the image of his desperate dreams...making the man he loved crawl through Hell with him...making the man-child realize that he couldn’t even begin to think about finding a way to be free of him.

_You’re **mine**. And you will always love me, even when it starts to kill you._

But he didn’t want to actually kill him, even half in love with death as he imagined himself to be.

_Fake._

The braid was in his hand and he could **feel** it. But what did that **mean**? He could remember it, and he was shocked at the clarity and closeness of the image, the two of them staring into the mirror over Laurie’s sink, their best pouts and sneers at the ready, glossy hair wetly shining, shifting between hues under the overhead light. _Didn’t I tell ya? You look like you’re **supposed** to._

(You look like me.)

_Fake._

“I created him, not you. I asked for him and he found me.”

A sad smile. _Oh you poor deluded bastard._

“I made him **for you**. You got away from me, somehow. You’ve got a will of your own and you sold this bullshit story that’s going to make you even more real. What they call viral these days, I suppose. So many eyes and ears absorbing it. But Tommy is **not** real. And if you’re not careful, he might just disappear.”

That black roiling rage he knew as well as he knew anything else about himself surged upwards, choking him, and he began throwing whatever he laid hands on in the direction of this asshole who dared to suggest that everything was FAKE.

“Liar! I will fuckin’ kill you!”

But the tiniest part of himself - a door at the back of his brain - creaked and swung open and there was that darkness again, formless and impenetrable, the void of doubt and of abandonment so deep it led to other dimensions farther away than anyone could ever calculate.

_Fake fake fake._

“Sixx, use your fuckin’ head - I made you smart, made you a nerd just like me - a band is an idea, right? You decide, at some point, that you’re gonna form a band and it’s gonna be this, and it’s gonna be that, and then...you have four totally different guys become one of the biggest bands on the planet. How is that even possible? **Because I wanted it to be.** For once, I wanted to win.”

But all Nikki could hear was _fake fake fake_.

 

 

(This is totally a true story.)

It was in the throes of a sweltering summer, on a Wednesday, and when off the road neither of them could stand to spend an evening doing the things that people usually do when they’re at home, so they called Al and cruised around Hollywood in the limo for a while, fucking a couple of girls, then they rolled up to the Rainbow and decided they needed some fresh meat.

“Al, find us some virgins, man, c’mon!” Tommy commanded, but in that way which didn’t seem so much a command as a kind of _I believe in you, dude_ motivational encouragement.

Once inside and at their favorite booth they looked around and noticed that they were being snubbed by the regulars. And sure enough, a catcall from the back of the room -

**MOTLEY WHO?**

\- made them seethe and decide they should blow this scene, all these jealous losers still pissed that Mötley had blown up so big. And speaking of, a blonde apparition appeared before them, trailing the mist of that storied past when they ruled the Strip.

“Hey guys.”

“Vicky, dude, what’s up?!” Tommy hugged her and Nikki could see their former advocate and all-around majordomo was attempting a certain emotional reserve even in the throes of Tommy’s embrace. Once upon a time she loved them very much and kept them in VO5 and groceries and sheer belief in their endeavors.

“Keepin’ outta trouble, y’know.” She twirled a straw in her drink and looked around. “Kinda dead tonight.”

“Are you still babysittin’ those poseurs -”

“Sixx, dude, don’t trash-talk my boys, okay? I wouldn’t let anyone pull that shit on you either.”

“Whatever.” He looked behind her and saw two girls at an adjacent table, staring at them. They didn’t look old enough to be in the place. “Friends of yours?” he asked, inclining his head.

“They work for me, kinda. We were just over at the Troub.”

“Are they legal?” Tommy asked.

“Well duh, asshole,” she snapped, rolling her eyes. “Stop it, you are **not** talking to them.”

“But they _want_ us to,” Nikki said. “You can totally tell.”

“These are smart girls who don’t need to be fuckin' around with whores like you, I’m just saying.”

“Like, college girls?” Nikki asked. “Virgins?”

“Fuck off, Sixx, seriously.”

“Hey!” Tommy called out, gesturing to them. “What’s up, ladies?”

They both waved and smiled, but remained seated.

“Dang dude, you cracked the whip on those chicks but good!” Tommy exclaimed.

“Seriously though...virgins?” Nikki pressed.

“You know, even though I have witnessed your depravity with my own eyes, I didn’t want to believe the absolute filth I was hearing about from Doug. But hey, you’re big fuckin’ stars now, right? Do whatever you like. But people in this town are fuckin’ **done** with you, know that.”

“C’mon dude, we’re just tryin’ to have some fun,” Tommy protested.

Nikki looked over at the girls again. Neither of them were dressed in the typical uniform: tight skirt, tits out, high heels and a pouty predatory glittering gaze. These girls reminded him of Lita, they just wanted to be cool - wearing leggings and artfully shredded shirts, lots of jewelry, and one of them had...Capezio shoes? Like she thought she was Diamond Dave or some shit?

“Are they in a band?” he asked, his tone amused and maybe even skeptical.

“The short one, she’s a guitar player. She’s good. But they love the music. Remember **that** , guys? The music?”

“I write the songs that make the whole world burn,” Nikki replied, smartass grin creasing his face.

Al came up to their table, rubbing his hands together. “I was over at The Roxy and I think I found what you were lookin’ for, guys.”

“Hey Al,” Vicky greeted him dryly. “Still hangin’ out with these degenerates, I see.”

“Gotta pay the bills, y’know.”

“Uh-huh. You boys have fun now, okay? But remember, you get busted and the big boys ain’t gonna like that. Fucks with their money.”

The girls were now staring like they were at the zoo. Nikki and Tommy made faces at them and they giggled.

“So sorry we didn’t get your names, blame _your mom_ ,” Nikki sniped and they slid out of the booth and made for the front door. Nikki then turned back, coming to stand toe-to-toe with Vicky.

“Oh, like **you** weren’t responsible for this? You let us loose, Vic - so you think about **that** the next time you’re feelin’ all bitter ‘cause we stepped over your body on our way to the top, okay?”

And he knew she was too proud to yell _I didn’t do shit!_ at his retreating back.


	9. No matter how high, you’re still too low.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Keats of course and somewhat by a recent Instagram post of Nikki's (the one taken during his surgery that he later deleted). Here's to a man not afraid to eviscerate himself and show us what's inside.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time  
I have been half in love with easeful Death,  
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,  
To take into the air my quiet breath;  
\- John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale

 

His anger drained out of him, Nikki stood in the living room of his creator holding a solid object and wondering why he had been angry in the first place.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute - Tommy can’t be fiction, he’s more famous than **any** of us!”

“Look what’s in your hand.”

Nikki sat down abruptly, as if he was holding something far too heavy, when in fact the object was smaller than he originally remembered. The skull. He saw himself reflected in its’ black glossy surface, but warped and diffuse. A jolt of hot anger made him want to throw it but he checked the impulse.

“So?!”

“You keep trying to find a rationale but you honestly can’t believe what I’m telling you? Even with the evidence in your own fucking hand?”

“And I’m saying how the fuck can **you** believe that anyone would buy this horseshit?!”

“Remember when you did the book tour? And you were telling people _we’re all a collection of stories, we live them out but we can change the ending if we want to_. Do you remember **that** bit of wisdom? You can’t have it both ways, Sixx. We’re either the sum of our aspirations and imaginings or we’re “real” and therefore immutable except for our agonizing spiral into entropy. But you know what? I’m not the only one who has sat around imagining your life.”

The mundane version of himself opened a nearby filing cabinet and pulled out a large sheaf of paper, tossing it in Nikki’s direction. As the majority of it hit him in the chest he saw it was typed manuscript pages. Scenes. Dialogue. All about him. 

_“I don’t need you! I don’t fuckin’ need anybody.”_

_Nikki Sixx, six feet of attitude, intelligence, mischief, anger, eyeliner and hair spray, was ready to be unleashed upon the world._

_He slithered through the grass in some kind of half-assed recon, deep in the throes of drug-induced paranoia._  
_“Nikki!” he heard her call, “Nikki what are you doing? Someone’s gonna call the cops!”_

_When he wrapped his tattooed arms around me, pinned me with those gorgeous hazel eyes, he was all I ever wanted to know. His kiss - his tongue sliding against my own in a wicked dance - was sweet and also bitter. Delicious and deadly._

_Here’s to your sweet sting_  
_opening myself so wide as you slide the needle in._  
_Golden oblivion_  
_washing over me._  
_Hold me in your arms once more_  
_mistress of all which lies beyond our understanding._

_Sometimes Nikki is the sweetest guy...we do shopping and sex and I let him outdress me...but then sometimes Nikki is the meanest guy. He pointed a gun at me and then at his own head, firing dry...click click click...and in each echo I felt my heart crack again._

_I love him_  
_I hate him_  
_I can’t leave him alone_

Nikki flung the pages into the air, a surreal understanding taking hold. He knew about what was referred to as fan fiction, someone in the organization long ages ago had explained it to him. Discussed how he was the one fans were writing about the most. He was surprised, thinking that most of the girls who came sniffing around were after Vince, even as there were women around the world he once had on a string, like so many wriggling sparkly fish. He liked girls he could talk to, since the actual women in his life all had one thing in common: they’d had enough of his bullshit. But these girls would listen to him, talk to him, tell him it was all gonna be okay. All the things he never tired of hearing, even as he knew most of them didn’t mean it.

So it was weird, sure, the notion that he was at the center of other people’s stories. Then again, that is exactly what he had wanted to happen. They rolled in, poised to conquer, and departed as a dozen tall tales made the rounds, entertaining people until the next tour, the next time they came to town.

“It wasn’t just me. They **all** made you real.”

And he could feel it, a heat moving across his illustrated skin, underneath the ink, to the very muscle and sinew, his aching bones, the beat of his treacherous heart, the electrical storm of his synapses.

The sum of so many words and wishes and desires.

A tug at his hair, blacker than black. 

“Lemme introduce ya to this boy right here, this is Nikki Fuckin’ Sixx, people!”

He can hear the hungry roar even now, rising to greet him.

 

A holiday in Hell

_How do you think it will be, when you die?_

It’s her, the personification of his addiction. He considers how he would have her look - not some corpse-skinned dark-haired wraith with deep well dark eyes - and decides she should have eyes like cask-aged whisky and hair as red as banked embers. Sheer sin.

But still...the Poe girl (as he thinks of her, half-haunted and forlorn) whispers questions he cannot answer, as he lies in sweat and regret and fear.

 _Why am I like this?_ And no answer easily to hand, his past one of those open-ended questions. The considerations of where and who he came from, the stuff that people usually knew about themselves, he might never know. Might not care to, save for his fucked-up brain.

He started seeing this figure when he embarked on a coke binge after watching _All That Jazz_. He loved that movie, could see his reflection in Fosse’s fucked-up coping mechanisms. Only wanting Art, only finding disappointment.

( _maybe just maybe if somebody could love me the way the audience loves me, just for once in my goddamn miserable fucking existence_ )

Jessica Lange, she is the Angel of Death, come for some philosophy, reminiscence, and one last breathless kiss.

_I have been half in love with easeful Death -_

And that is why he called him, that is why he pulled him into the shadows, every time. Tommy could make Nikki stop thinking about death so much. Tommy was the light he held in his hands, held against his body, clutched like the last bit of driftwood upon the waves after the ship was long gone down down down to the unfathomable depths.

He was addicted to the one thing he could never hold onto.

Hope.

 

Bullshit bravado, acting like he wasn’t deeply ashamed to admit he was fucking around with needles, sunk deep in junkie life. But he knew Tommy wouldn’t shame him; he might be curious or cautionary, but he loved Nikki. Nikki kept that tether tight. Tommy was careful, made Nikki shoot him up in the same place every time, within the rose where the hole couldn’t be seen. And he thought of himself as Death, in that moment, withering the flower of Youth. It was a laugh to think he was corrupting Tommy, the boy was already running wild when they met, but the dread radiated from him every time Nikki sank the needle in. But they would both smile when the rush came on, eyelids fluttering, the nod taking Tommy down.

Nikki would tie himself off and do the same, always a larger dose, but Tommy’s caution infected him and he never took it too far.

They would hold hands as they nodded off, a chemical wedding. Nikki had read about the esoteric history of the Tarot, how every single card held a wealth of allegory and symbolism.

They were Art, the two of them: White King, Black Queen, uniting their essences into a greater union. Seeking a higher understanding of themselves on the path to realization.

But this was a pale imitation, heroin a demanding bitch who squatted in the corner, avid eyes fixed on him and reveling in his abasement.

_You treat Tommy like a baby, you know, he’s a spoiled brat._

But Tommy was all he truly had. He considered every other relationship to be ultimately disposable, subject to abandonment. Tommy did not walk away from people that easily, and when they had occasion to look in each other’s eyes he saw nothing but a warm willingness to follow.

A cult of two: a crazed visionary and his wide-eyed true believer.

When they fucked around with other things, Nikki would use it to wear down the societal conditioning and make Tommy into his blissed-out babbling acolyte. The litany of devotion passing his lips in gasps and moans and sighs.

“Now you tell me,” he would intone, low and nasty like the Snake who had violated Eden, “you tell me who you really love.”

“Only you.” Tears on his face, pupils dilated and that gorgeous warmth shining bright.

“If I dragged you to Hell with me, you wouldn’t fight it, would you?”

“No, never.”

There are lies which certain chemicals tell. Serotonin, flooding the brain upon orgasm, and verbal responses are only an echo of the greater ecstasy. The bliss which eradicates all reason.

He knew, but he craved hearing it. He knew _all_ the lies. But he feasted on each word from Tommy’s lips. Finding the spot, flipping the switch. And it could go on all night like that. In a bizarro world, Tommy Lee would not have been his band brother, Terror Twin, lover and right-hand man, a fucking amazing drummer and kickass performer; but rather the perfect porno slut, taking all manner of penetration with eager enthusiasm.

And what did the real world know? Sixx had T-Bone locked in his closet again, the two of them fiending on whatever shit they had scored, higher than high because that’s what they did for fun. And the world moved on and left them to it. No hope in Hell, so they say.

But Nikki also knew the bottom line, when they walked out into daylight and Tommy had done everything he could not to look like he’d been on a two-day bender, ready to go home and be the prince again.

_Princess is gonna find out, one of these ole days._

He could see, intrusive as the daylight making his head ache, the look of sheer relief in Tommy’s eyes. The eyes which loved the sight of him but the eyes which also seemed amazed each time that he had managed to survive yet another binge down in Hell, in the arms of his personal Satan.

_Run home, boy, fast as you can. Run home to Heatherland and thank whatever you believe in that you **have** a home, that you have someone who loves you and doesn’t think you’re a freak._

Some days, he hated Tommy for that. But he always hated himself more.


	10. I’m totally awesome...except when I’m not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a tense shift towards the end which is purposeful.

“So I’m not _just_ a story. I’m really real.”

“Yeah.”

Nikki watched dust motes in the air, tumbling and floating in a shaft of sunlight. He had a memory of doing the same thing during one of the seemingly dozens of times he kicked, too sick and aching to do anything but lie in his own fluids, wracked with cramps and shivers, his body rebelling against the lack of the bliss which over time ceased being bliss and was only ever craven need. His body making him pay for both the strength of character to save himself and the weakness which led him into this mess in the first place.

“And Tommy is **not** real.”

“No.”

The person who claimed to have created him looked so ordinary, missing the spark Nikki could always sense in himself whenever he looked in the mirror. Even at his most hungover, junk-sick, injured, paranoid and fiending, there was that lodestone winking back at him. His natural charisma which would eventually attract the attention of someone...and later, _everyone_.

So who was _this_ guy? Merely wishing for a larger-than-life avatar?

“Then why is it that more people know who he is?”

“You oughta know, kid, myths abound in our consciousness. There were things you wanted people to believe about you. Remember? Talkin’ ‘bout you’d been in a gang. I wanted that cred so bad, but it was never true. You borrowed from other people’s stories - like Vince. You thought he was so cool, and so you started to tell people you were **all** thugs. How fuckin’ ridiculous is **that**?!”

“We were a gang - you wrote it that way, or whatever.”

“Sure, but then other people came along and wrote you the complete opposite. Sweet and nice and cryin’ every five minutes ‘bout some emotional bullshit. People make you into what they want you to be. And you start believin’ **that** too.”

“Why did you make me so fucked up?”

“Oh, so now that’s a bad thing, right? You’re all stable and clean and you have **your** princess now too.”

“I’m finally happy, now.”

“Yeah? I kinda doubt that. I don’t doubt that you _think_ you’re happy, Sixx. But you don’t know how to stop - you’ve **never** known how to stop. That’s who you are.”

“I’m an addict, I get that. I totally admit it to the whole fuckin’ world. But that doesn’t mean I have to be fucked up forever.”

“I’m not even talkin’ ‘bout that. I mean, I meant for you to change the world, and that means you gotta be dangerous.”

These words mirrored his own self-doubt and restlessness of late. The process of making his past into yet another story, a story less true than the version of the truth he continued to cling to, a story which made him look pretty shitty at times…

_You feel unreal._

...was it the story he actually wanted to tell?

“I gave you the greatest gift, you fucker. I made you _true_. All the people who tell those stories about you, none of them are really true, and most of them are pretty fuckin’ clueless when it comes to your personality. People are always looking to do what I did, but they end up idealizing their own damn selves in stories, even if it seems they’re focusing on the flaws. Jesus Fucking Christ I can’t stand that shit - it’s like watching someone masturbate. Seventy thousand words about how awesome you are - oh wait, no - _your character_ is. Bullshit! If you are so goddamn desperate to attempt to convince perfect strangers that you deserve to be immortalized then you’ve got bigger issues than me!”

Nikki laughed. He hadn’t meant to laugh, and wondered if there were words on a page even now directing the scene. _Nikki laughed._

“But I didn’t do that - you’re not me. You’re the person who deserved to win. Not me.”

And he had. He’d won, even as he had also done his best to sabotage himself. He _always_ won, somehow.

_Except...except…_

“Tommy.”

Hazel eyes times two focused each on the other.

“Tommy.”

“But he’s safe now, he’s got someone who loves him for who he is. He’s always needed that. I felt like I had to let go of him so he could find himself again.”

“The story has been told. It’s over, right? Let the credits roll. Then what happens?”

 _The rest of my life. But which life?_

“He’s my best friend, I’ll always be there for him.”

“Oh yeah? ‘Cause you weren’t. Two whole years that you didn’t talk to him. Dropped him like a motherfuckin’ stone.”

“I let him go, I told you that. But it was for his own good.”

“When you do that, Sixx, when you break that promise you made to Tommy, that you _insisted_ he make to you, then he fades. And over the years he’s faded a lot. There’s a version of him up there on the screen, sure, there are _so many stories_ about him out there. But the Tommy that you know, that you love - you **do** love him, right?”

“Yes.” A whisper, but only because he didn’t think he could bear the true weight of the word.

“ _That_ Tommy? He’s not all there now. I know you know that.”

Nikki put his face into his hands, suddenly overwhelmed, wanting to sob, but not in front of this man who was...whatever he was. But he _did_ know, thinking about seeing Tommy that night, how tired he looked, how old. How pained he was to be confronted with the memory of their fucked-up love affair. But then, over the course of these few days, he had started to look more like himself.

“You’re trying to save him. You’re trying to make _me_ save him.”

“Don’t you want to? Isn’t he worth the effort? If you really love him, I mean.”

And what did it really mean...to love Tommy. What did it mean for them, when they had been in love with each other for long chaotic decades. Each had tried to walk away from the other, only to find themselves together again. 

Tommy, who really did believe in Fate, would say: “It’s always been meant to be.” But Nikki knew the truth. He had prayed for Tommy, to a faceless dark god, begged for intervention and rescue, sacrificed a part of himself to seal the deal.

“I know you’re scared, Sixx. You think something is happening that’s going to fuck everything up. Your perfect life, which you nearly killed yourself to obtain. But what if it doesn’t?”

“I know what you are,” Nikki said, his gaze direct and his body stiffening. “You _gave_ him to me, and now you’re telling me you’re going to _take_ him back? Why? Why didn’t you just do it already?”

The other figure smiled, the figure which might only be wearing the shape of himself, a mundane self, like a suit.

“If you only knew, Sixx. If only you understood about Time, how it doesn’t really exist. But you’re real, and all you know is Now. The Void, it doesn’t care about such things. But it **is** curious. How much more are you willing to give for the things you love?”

Nikki knew there was really only one answer to that question. 

 

To be the lie you must first believe, then you must live

_**One**...Two...Three_  
It happened about a month after they’d first kissed. They had occasion to grope each other after that, now and again, in the midst of the near-constant debauchery going on at the Mötley House, but the greater portion of their desire was focused upon the gigs they played, the music they made. That is how they made love to each other, not that they truly understood. Nikki’s playing being as rudimentary as it was, they weren’t as tight a rhythm section as they were supposed to be, but because Tommy loved him, his drumming style became even more intricate so that Nikki could hide underneath it. His two-chord approach almost lost within the percussive tapestry of Tommy’s fills and accents. He taught Nikki how to groove, in a simplistic kind of way, which in some ways was much easier than playing rock n’roll style bass. Putting his copy of the Ohio Players’ _Honey_ on his stereo, tapping along with drumsticks on the kitchen table, nodding his head to the beat.

“C’mon dude, get on the one!” Tommy would yell above the slinky groove of “Fopp.”

 _Jesus Christ I hope nobody sees us doing this._ But Nikki would grit his teeth and gamely attempt to follow along on his Thunderbird.

“That’s the pocket! You got it, Sixx!”

Nikki, who had never really played in time with anybody in his life, felt a strange kind of euphoria to finally be doing that thing that bass players and drummers were supposed to do. No one else ever had the patience to sync with him, to understand him, to communicate in the way musicians did, even if it meant that they were all playing different kinds of noise at the same time. There was a secondary pulse inside of Tommy which continually beat: the click of his drumsticks upon every available surface, the rhythm of his footsteps, the way they came together in the explorations of their attraction.

Planting one of his high heels on the drum riser - _that motherfuckin’ drum riser_ , as Stick referred to it - locking eyes with Tommy, and it was like the best sex was supposed to be, a slow rise to a hard ending, a rush of satisfaction and sweat. 

He was in love with the way Tommy smiled at him in those moments of connection.

 

They came back from Terner’s with the cheapest stuff they could bargain for in anticipation of the night’s binging -

“C’mon Tony, former employee discount!” Nikki had begged.

\- and once in his room trying to decide which of his leather pants could stand to be set on fire for that evening’s gig at The Roxy, Nikki noticed something weird about the carpet in his closet. Weirder still because he never actually used his closet for anything and therefore ignored it. His room was gloomy by choice and he would have otherwise missed it but for a stray ray of sunshine coming through a tear in the curtains.

The carpet was thoroughly black, as if it had been burned.

“T-Bone! Come check this out!” 

Tommy came in, a glass of brownish liquid in his hand. Nikki took it from him and sniffed.

“Kahlua?”

“Yeah.”

“But I thought that milk was bad.”

“Dude, that’s why you put the Kahlua in there!”

Nikki handed it back with a grimace. “You are so fuckin’ gross.”

Tommy downed the contents and looked around the room. “So what’s goin’ on?”

“Was someone in my closet?”

“Nobody goes in your room but you and whatever chicks you’re bangin.”’

“Look at this carpet, man.”

The two walked over to the closet and Tommy leaned down. “Gnarly! Looks like someone took a blowtorch to it.”

“Doesn’t carpet melt when it’s burned? I thought Vince told us that.”

Tommy shrugged. “Probably, all that shit they treat it with. Yeah you’re right, not burnt but just, like, totally black. I’ve never seen black carpet before.” He ran a hand over it. “Huh, weird.”

“What?”

“Feel it.”

Nikki crouched down and did the same. He jerked his hand back as if burned.

“What the fuck is that?”

Tommy did it again. “It feels, like, _sticky_? Maybe? But look, there’s nothin' on my hand.”

Nikki thought it felt greasy rather than sticky. Dense. But it was strange how whatever they were feeling left no trace on the palms of their hands.

“So somebody did this?”

Nikki stood up, suppressing the urge to shudder. “I dunno, I thought? But maybe it was always like this.”

Tommy slid the door shut. “There, now you can’t see it. Problem solved.”

Nikki wasn’t even surprised when they came back from the gig and found the closet door had been pushed open again.

 

 _One... **Two**...Three_  
Nikki was on the floor in the hallway at the front of the house, like he thought he was safer there? His fingertips brushed the polished wooden floor...well, dusty now. Housekeepers were out of the question. He’d forgotten why he was there. Oh yeah, the phone. He picked up the receiver and dialed the only number his brain had actually memorized.

“Hello?” The voice was clipped, a bit nasal-y, polite and even chipper. Nikki swallowed, not wanting to sound strung-out. The silence endured.

“Hello? I’m going to hang up now.”

“Heather, hey, it’s Nikki.”

“Oh. Hi Nikki, how are you?”

“Great, yeah, is Tommy there?”

“He’s about to go golfing with my dad, can he call you back?”

_Great Satan, what has that woman done to my drummer?_

“Uh, I just need a minute. Please.”

He heard just the smallest of sighs, and sighed himself in response.

“Sixx, what’s up? ‘Bout to hit the links with the old man.”

“Yeah I heard. So, uh, can you come by? Like, later?”

“Uh...yeah. Definitely _later_ later, for sure. You alright?”

_No._

“Yeah. I’m gonna...work on some songs, maybe.”

“Yeah okay. I’ll be by.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah dude, definitely.”

_Do you promise?!_

Why did it always have to feel like life or death? 

_Well gee, Sixx, let's think about that one for a minute, huh?_

Here he was, locked up in his gothic House of Horrors while Tommy lived the sunlit life of a normal guy. Well, not that he was really fooling anyone on _that_ score, but still.

He kept telling himself he didn’t want any of that shit, but what **did** he want?

_You want your light, and he’s not here._

The wall next to the door had a bloodstain on it. Probably his. In the daylight it looked like any of the other stains all around the house.

 

When Tommy finally showed up around two AM, he found Nikki in nearly the same spot, not that he would have known that, tracing patterns in the dust on the floor. He **had** known, by the tone of Nikki’s voice, that he wasn’t there to fiend, though they would. Nikki was lonely - would never admit to being lonely - but empty and aching, and they made their way through a sack of cold burgers from McDonald's and talked about nothing in particular.

“You aren’t mad, are you?”

“About what?”

“That I got married again.”

“Why would I be mad about that?”

“Naw, you wouldn’t, I guess. But -”

Nikki turned to face him, and his eyes finally looked like they saw Tommy.

“What, you think I’m _jealous_?”

“No, I don’t mean _that_ , but -”

“We don’t do that. **Never**.”

Tommy worried at a hole in his jeans. “I know we don’t, but I know you’re sad. Why are you sad?”

Any glib answer he might have given would have killed the mood. Nikki blinked and breathed and shrugged.

“Ghosts, man. Ghosts been whispering in my ear all day long.”

“Let’s go out, then. Tell ‘em to fuck off and we’ll -”

“No I _can’t_ ,” Nikki replied, his voice cracking. _Goddamn it_. “I can’t, okay, let’s just -” He made a gesture towards the back of the house and Tommy gave a slight nod.

“I don’t wanna fix tonight, though, okay? I know you gotta, but I can’t stay all night, so -”

Nikki pulled Tommy to his feet and they embraced. They didn’t need to talk.

_Thank you._

_I’m here for you, you don’t have to be sad now._

 

It was near dawn, fixing in his closet amid shreds of heroin-stained tinfoil, the sound of Tommy’s Harley echoing with a growl through the sleeping streets, that he saw the blackness had returned, a dark patch on the expensive Persian rug which was already stained and burned.

“No,” he whispered to it. “I’m not ready for you yet.”

He tried not to look at it, all the hours he spent hiding, lying, killing himself by degrees. But eventually his eyes would be drawn to it, a space untouched by the detritus of his junkie life, occluded and empty.

_Maybe that’s my soul, and it’s already dead, and it’s trying to warn me._

Not that it mattered.

 

 _One...Two... **Three**_  
You wanna know what happened? I’ll tell you what fucking happened, what **really** happened. The way **you** think it happened is not how it happened.

Those little angels of mercy, bless them, they brought me home in their shitty Mazda, babbling all the way about how much they loved me, and in that moment, I loved them too. I remembered what it was all about.

But inside, in my House of Horrors, she was there. After I changed the message on my answering machine I went to take a piss and I saw her in the mirror.

I can’t stop. I have to take **all** the drugs, simple as that. I promised those girls I wouldn’t, and I meant it, but I can’t stop and I mean that too.

I opened the medicine cabinet, pulled out the bindle of China White I had stashed in a bottle of aspirin (for emergencies), and shot up. And it felt fucking _amazing_.

Nobody wants to hear that, not when you’re trying to sell your own redemption. And I get that, this is the lie that certain chemicals tell you. But nothing will ever feel as good as that and it is the fucking truth and the fucking burden we have to carry on our broken backs for the rest of our fucking lives, however long they will be.

When I woke up the next day, needle in my arm, blood on the tiles, I was alone. Like I deserved to be. But not quite. There was a voice. Not one of the frantic messages being left on my machine.

_Hey it’s Nikki. I’m not home because I’m dead._

“Sixx, mother of fucking Christ, you’re alive?!”

This voice was quiet, and it sounded perfectly reasonable.

 _Third time’s the charm, Sixx. You’ll like it in here, I promise._

It wasn’t her, I knew who she was. I knew the things she liked to say. The questions she asked that I could never answer. No, this was some other voice and somehow I knew where it was coming from.

_Just one more time, motherfucker. C’mon, I know you can do it._

I was not quite conscious, but the voice was perfectly insistent above the rising din of messages -

“Sixx you asshole, if you’re not dead I’m gonna kill you myself!”

\- but I couldn’t move, didn’t have the will to move, or even take the needle out of my arm just yet, a fat drop of coagulated blood holding it in place.

That’s how it really went down. Nobody intervened, nobody slapped me out of my stupor, nobody tried to rescue me with their love and concern. I faced what I finally realized was the Death Dealer all by myself, lying on my bathroom floor.

_Nikki...Nikki...I know you can hear me._

“Sixx, listen to me: if MTV and the mags start calling, tell them no fucking comment, do you understand me?!”

People, they want to use this story for their own purposes, I get that, they want to tell it a different way because they don’t like the plain truth of it. So how do you think **I** felt?

I mean, I was dead, right? So what did it matter?

And I was _always_ going to be alone.

But I’m a stubborn son-of-a-bitch (for real - take that, Deana) and I was going to ignore everybody. So I laid there for a while listening to it all and then eventually Doc is standing in the doorway and he sees the whole thing and he looks at me like I’m a pile of shit smeared all over the floor.

“For fuck’s sake, Sixx, this is the last fucking time!”

And so it was that I was dragged away from Death’s Door. Or some shit like that. And that is how I tried to kill myself three times but it didn’t take.

You think it would have, right? 

So now I’m wondering: what does it _really_ want from me?


	11. Are ya watchin’ me bleed, are ya believin?’

Nikki had spent more than half his life coming to, from any number of positions and situations.

It was nothing new.

A blink, and here you are now. He thought about Buckaroo Bansai’s most famous aphorism: _Wherever you go, there you are._ And it was true - no matter where you might be, anywhere on the planet, you were always with _yourself_ and that meant you brought your shit with you. He didn’t need therapy to figure that out, but he **did** need therapy to learn how to deal with the shit that he carried around even now. Sometimes you couldn’t fix things, you could only learn how to live with the imperfections, the disappointments, and figure out how not to allow those things to crush you.

Nikki found himself in his truck, a familiar space, and he gasped to realize it. Sitting on a run-down street in the Southeast District, the sun low in the sky but still far enough from sunset that the day was not quite used-up. Nikki blinked several times, gripping the steering wheel, taking deep breaths.

_Where? How?_

He looked over at the passenger’s side and a shiny black lump was resting on the seat. He picked it up.

_(Dude, this is the raddest thing anyone’s ever given me)_

And it was smaller than he remembered. But then again, so were most of the mementos of his life.

 

Traffic was beginning to snarl and so it took a long while to drive back to Calabasas. During the drive Nikki allowed memories he was no longer sure were his own to replay. But they were still so vivid and the associated emotions still so immediate. He had a difficult time remembering when Gunner and Decker were babies, but he could recall a random night on tour in 1986 with a clarity which he felt and smelled and tasted as if it were still happening.

He recalled a therapist who had tried to convince him that he shouldn’t think of himself as Mötley, but rather think of Mötley as something that had happened **to** him. But he could never stop believing that he _became_ that creation, the ultimate self-made man. He couldn’t even say Nikki Sixx was a persona when he was the man with that very name, on every official document he possessed.

 _That’s my name_ , he’d had to tell so many people over the years. _My real, actual, legal name_.

In fact. 

_(Names have power, your friend knows all about that.)_

They had all legally changed their names, Tommy included, who began thinking of himself in terms of who Nikki had shaped him to be. When the band was reviewing the galley proofs of _The Dirt_ and Tommy referred to “the Lee family curse” in one of his chapters, Nikki had snorted with derision. _That’s who I made you into, dumbass._ But he wouldn’t say that to Tommy’s face, because they had begun to mend their relationship once more at that time. Even then, he knew. Deep down, though something in his brain told him it was a caprice of ego. His best frenemy.

He remembered the first time he saw Tommy play, it was that same surreal echo inside himself, like he wasn’t certain if the other was real. After his encounter with Mick he thought it had been either an illusion, or his plea had not worked, though whatever he had invoked wanted him to _believe_ it had. This was a great band, and Nikki had almost wanted to be a part of it, but it wasn’t _cool_. Tommy, though, that kid had _something_ he thought he could work with. He thought he could take those pieces and make them into something great, by sheer force of will and belief in what he had been asking for, that handful of years of starvation and determination. But Greg had turned him down. 

“You should definitely grab Tommy for sure, we both know he’s the probably the best local drummer right now. But I already got a gig, dude.”

Nikki had heard the things Greg muttered behind his back about how Nikki could barely play, but fuck it - this was rock n’roll and what really mattered was your heart, not your chops. Nikki had a vision, and he was going to win.

_There’s nothing I won’t do._

Tommy expressed the deepest belief in Nikki from the moment they spoke, and when they saw each other it felt like the Universe had finally aligned for him, everything snapping into place with an audible _click_. Like in a love story when one person says to the other, “Haven’t we met somewhere before?” Joey, who had tagged along with Tommy because he _thought_ they were a package deal rhythm section, was quickly relegated to the background as Nikki and Tommy began discussing everything they could think of, the bonds of their unholy chemistry forming instantaneously.

Nikki brought Tommy back to his place to listen to his demos and the other played along, ever-present drumsticks clicking and snapping on the kitchen table. When the last song was over he seemed to grow solemn.

“What?”

“It’s, just, well - I can’t see your eyes, dude. And, y’know, I gotta. I gotta know what you’re thinkin’ when we play together, that’s how it works.”

Nikki had leaned across the table until they were nearly nose-to-nose. “How ‘bout now?”

Tommy stared intently, forehead furrowed. After a few moments he sat back in his chair, warm brown eyes alight with surprise.

“How did you do that?!”

“What?” Nikki replied with a smirk.

“You _talked_ to me! How -”

“What did I say?”

Tommy’s eyes grew wider as Nikki intoned the sentence right along with him.

_You know you’re never gonna be in a band cooler than this one._

“Are you, like, one of those dudes on TV?”

Nikki held up his bangs and widened his bloodshot hazel eyes. “No, it’s just for you, because you’re actually _listening_.”

In this story neither ever told because no one would ever believe it, thus was their shared destiny forged.

 

As soon as he pulled up to the house his phone rang. The caller ID displayed a photo of Courtney and Brittany posing for Nikki’s camera in their best “hellion wives” outfits, as he referred to the style. 

“Hey Brit,” he greeted the caller, “Is everything okay?”

“Hey dude,” Brittany replied, with her usual nasal-y vocal fry inflection. “Tommy told me to tell you that he went to Lisa’s Lookout so meet him there. He said you would know what that was.”

“Yeah I do, thanks babe.”

“So I can ask **you** what it is?”

“You remember about my sister Lisa, right?”

“Oh yeah - that you never met, right, because she died?”

“Yeah. It’s where she’s buried.”

“Oh Nikki, are you okay?”

“Yeah. Me and T-Bone, we got Mötley shit to talk about, that’s all.”

“Got it. Man shit, yeah, okay. Sorry I didn’t let you come to the door but I’m having a body issues kinda day.”

“I totally understand, girl. I just want you to remember you’ve got three people who love you _so hard_.”

“And I love you too, so so much! So yeah, go talk to our dude, I’ll see you later.”

 _Will I?_ “Okay girl, see you later.”

Nikki took one last long look at the house before he left it behind, driving into the sun.

 

Due to variations in topography, the acre of land Nikki had purchased for Lisa’s memorial seemed smaller than it actually was. The access road was blocked by a chain which was easy enough to circumvent and he followed the steep twisting path up to the fence which ran along the top of the plot. He parked in front of the fence next to Tommy’s Tesla and wondered where the other was for a moment.

_Is he already gone?_

But then he realized Tommy probably just climbed the fence because that’s the kind of guy he was. He unlocked the gate and stood there for a moment, the golden rays illuminating a cherished sight. Tommy was sitting cross-legged on the ground next to Lisa’s angel, and from the angle of their proximity it looked like it was blessing him. Tommy looked over and waved, a wry smile as if to say _yeah, you caught me_.

It was the most appropriate reminder that their relationship was sacred ground, the soul of Mötley, and the first person for whom it could be said that Nikki began to comprehend the nature of romantic love. Not to _understand_ it, necessarily, because such things took a lifetime to accomplish. But to know that it actually **did** exist.

His Twin. Each containing a part of the other, conjoined heart and soul.

 

Whenever Brandi insisted upon a girls’ night out and left Gunner with Nikki, Tommy would be sure to come over immediately to help out, relishing the role of uncle-by-choice. Gunner would usually be wailing in a way which indicated that no one could possibly understand the depths of his toddler distress and then Tommy would pick him up and cuddle him, seeking to soothe.

“Hey Little Sixx, my man, it’s okay. Look, it’s just us dudes hangin’ out, gonna be a rad time. We can’t be _cryin_ ,’ no sirree!”

Nikki always smiled at the sobriquet, though sometimes they called him Three because it was half of Sixx, a joke which Brandi never found particularly witty.

“You are gonna be the best dad,” he told Tommy, who always looked so happy to be doing anything for Gunner, even the messy stuff that _no one_ wanted to do.

Tommy sighed, continuing to rock Gunner in his arms.

“It’s not gonna happen.”

Nikki gave him a confused look. “Never?”

“Not as far as I can tell. Heather keeps saying she doesn’t wanna have kids, and she must be using more than one kind of birth control because I stopped using rubbers a long time ago. But no surprises.”

Gunner reached for Nikki and his father took him back, cradling his son against his chest.

“T, I’m so sorry. She won’t budge? Like, maybe in a year or two?”

Tommy shook his head, his expression turning miserable. “Nuh-uh. She auditioned for another show, thinks she’s gonna get it, said she couldn’t do both and she’s gotta get on TV again because the movie thing hasn’t worked out so good. I mean, I get it, y’know, she wants to work even though I said she didn’t _have_ to, but she _wants_ to. And she had her career long before I came along. But I thought because she’s real close to her family that she’d want to have one too. It just bums me out _so much_. Because what if that’s not the only reason? What if she thinks that I wouldn’t be a good dad?”

The words which came next were instinctual. “Dude, you are the only guy I know who actually _wanted_ kids way before you even got married. You would be the **best** dad. So it must be something else and that’s just fuckin’ sad. Doesn’t she know _how much_ you love her?”

“I thought she did.”

Nikki reached over and ran a finger along Tommy’s cheekbone. “You deserve a family of your own, never doubt that. And you’ve always got me.”

Tommy looked up, eyes bright with unshed tears and mouthed _I love you_.

Nikki ran his finger along those lips which had spoken the prized phrase. “Love you too,” he whispered.

 

He walked across the grass and sat down next to Tommy, leaning into him, noting that the other still felt solid enough, at least.

“You made it just in time,” Tommy said.

“Yep, your favorite time of day.”

Tommy took his hand, just like the first time. They looked out at the sky, taking on the fanciful colors of sunset: fiery red-orange, glowing blue, pink and purple clouds moving away from the horizon.

“What are we gonna do, Nikki?” he whispered. “About what’s happening to us?”

“I don’t know, exactly.”

He watched the shadows lengthen, half-expecting that one of them would be completely black, a hole opening before them.

 

“Fuck!” Nikki exclaimed, bolting upright, panting, looking around.

Tommy was sitting at the other end of the bench reading a magazine. “Dude, it was just a dream.”

Nikki didn’t speak further for a few moments, continuing to breathe heavily and take in his surroundings. He reached out for Tommy and his bandmate took his hand, squeezing firmly.

“You’re here, Sixx, you’re right here with me and we’re Omaha bound!”

It was the most terrible thing, to watch Tommy being devoured by that blackness. Screaming, the sound of his own name being shouted in agony by the one he loved.

“I couldn’t save you,” he finally said, his mouth so dry. “You were screaming, but I couldn’t -”

“It was just a dream. I’m here, c’mon, look at me.” Tommy moved closer until they were nose-to-nose.

_Why can’t you have a dream ‘bout us lying naked on a beach gettin’ shitfaced watchin' the scenery? What’s up with your suckass imagination, Sixxy?_

“Fuck you, T-Bone.”

Tommy grinned and it was the most beautiful sight.

 

“Have you ever...I dunno...uh, ever had the feeling that all of this isn’t real?”

“When I was locked up, sure. Felt like I didn’t exist to nobody, inside that concrete box.”

_Like a tomb._

“What if it’s **not** , though. For real.”

Tommy chuckled, running his thumb across Nikki’s knuckles. “Unreal for real sounds pretty fuckin’ surreal, dude.”

“Ha ha, but I’m serious.”

Tommy tilted his head up and closed his eyes. Nikki could see him swallow, and hear him exhale out of his nose.

“Well, how would we know, right? There’s that saying when things are weird - _It’s all in your head_. And the answer to that is: _Isn’t everything?_ It might as well be all in our heads because without them we wouldn’t even know _anything_ at all."

“It’s like you were saying: Mötley is unbelievable. Because...it really is?”

Tommy opened his eyes and looked at Nikki.

“What are you trying to say, Sixx?”

_godohgodidon’thinkicandothisdon’tmakemedothis_

“Whoa - look!”

Nikki pointed at the horizon. A green streak could be seen above the orange glow, what he figured must have been meant by _a marmalade sky_ , a color so deep and delicious.

“Wow,” Tommy murmured. “Now **this** is a fuckin’ sunset!”

Nikki took a deep breath. “Okay listen: let’s just say, for the sake of... _whatever_ , that once the sun goes down, then the world is over.”

“Over?”

“Yeah it’s just...gone. Nothing, no more.”

“Well _shit_.”

Nikki chuckled, but the sound was hollow to his own ears. “So was this the story you wanted to be in? With me? If all that’s left of us is a story, is it the one you want people to know?”

“The story that _they_ know, or the story we actually lived?”

“Either one.”

“You are the center of my life. Not for better or worse, but for **ever**. There’s no story of me without you. So _hell yes_. But it’s not just, like, one story. I started thinking about that when we got those emails; that’s what it was. Every single moment was its’ own story and there’s so many stories no one will ever know but us. And that is the story I wanted to be in, even when it was, like, the _worst_ thing ever.”

Nikki squeezed Tommy’s hand, feeling the bones and sinew still solid within his own grip. “Me too.”

But what if this was also part of the story? _He felt so real, even as he faded away. Even as my own selfish desires swallowed him whole._

_(You’d better tell him, Sixx, before it’s too late.)_

“Let’s just say...for the sake of _whatever_...that this was the last time we could tell each other how we really felt. And we’re not trying to pretend it doesn’t exist. We can’t kill the Terror Twins.”

“So what does that mean?”

“The world is gonna be over, it doesn’t have to mean anything. But _I love you._ I think I loved you from the moment you slid into that booth at Denny’s, grinning like an idiot, all ‘Hey dude, what’s up?!’ and I just **fell**. I told myself for years that I didn’t really fall for you until later, but that’s a lie. A bad fiction. The true story is that I loved you from Day One. You know I always say that Mötley was born the day I decided what I wanted my band to be, but hell, it was really born the day you and I came together and knew we could actually do it.”

The horizon was on fire and Tommy kissed him.

The kiss which has never truly ended, even though in this moment it did, eventually, the light leaving the sky.

“I loved you before I even knew you. Crazy, right? But the first time I saw London I thought, _shit, I wanna be in a band with that guy!_ And then you made that dream come true. You made me who I always wanted to be. How could I **not** love you with my whole heart? I’m yours, you know that.”

One last time, fingers through messy curls. **Mine.** A single tug.

Nikki gripped Tommy’s hand until the sun was gone and only the glow remained. When he stopped feeling it he began to cry. In the waning dusk he looked at the back of that now empty hand. It was completely black.

 _I didn’t want to eat him_ , he thought, panic welling up within him. _Why?!_

 _Because you could_ , the patient voice informed him. _Isn’t that why you do everything?_

“I’m ready for you now,” he whispered.

_C’mon in Frankie, come join us._

He began to crawl, then, as the night came down.


	12. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A word from Our Protagonist.
> 
> To banish him properly, you must laugh.   
> Laugh with joy and laugh with love.   
> For all that's been said, and all that's been done.

Although this motion picture is based on a true story some of the material has been fictionalized.  
\- disclaimer from the end credits of _The Dirt_ (2019)

 

Hey. Yeah it’s me. Not the me who walked among you once upon a time, only a version of him. But the one you’ve been shadowing all this time, reading this story.

Don’t pretend like you can’t hear me - I see you there sitting in front of the screen. This is what you really wanted to know about, right? The good times, and even the not-so-good times, back there in the past. When we were young, gorgeous, and gorgeously fucked-up. I totally get it. But here’s the thing: you can’t _stay_ here, as much as you might want to. This is just a story, and eventually you have to get up from in the front of the screen and go do whatever it is you do. You can’t just magically wake up in the past, only those of us who are immortal can do that.

Like me, you mean? Don’t wanna leave, can’t make me. Sixx is the stubbornest son-of-a-bitch who ever roamed in the imaginations of thousands of bored and horny teenagers. She left me here in the past and here’s where I’m gonna stay: with my gang, and with my Twin. He’s the best, right? Yeah, you might say you like me better (And a lot of you do? _Wow._ ), but we’re a matched set. Love that boy, full of light, for real and for always.

Who is she? I’m not really sure, but it’s like I can see her behind you as you stare at the screen. She’s smirking, almost like I do. She thinks she knows me, but she only knows the stories we wanted everyone to know, and then she wrote her own. Just like so many people have done before, and will keep on doing. **That’s** how you get to be immortal.

I like this story at least, I can stay here, in a handful of moments when everything was still fun. Fucked-up for sure, but fun.

Speaking of magic, language is really the only actual magic we possess. With it, we create our intent. We can’t conjure our desires until we can articulate them, either to ourselves or to others. So yes, this is magic, right here. With language we can create something which is _true_ , even if it’s not _real_. I hope this work(ing) held you in its’ thrall, if only for a moment.

It’s time to let the credits roll...see you around, maybe. I’m always here, right here. You can come back whenever you like, whenever you want a fictionalized memory of what it was like. There’s so many of them out there, take your pick. But this isn’t _your_ story, it’s **mine** , okay? We all have our stories to keep us company. Thanks for coming to visit me in this one.

Go on now, go live that crazy future life we all dreamed about. It’s okay, I’ll wait.


End file.
